← catalogue

The Brass Bottle

by F. Anstey · English · Gutenberg #30689 · 415,024 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Brass Bottle
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Brass Bottle

Author: F. Anstey


        
Release date: December 16, 2009 [eBook #30689]
                Most recently updated: April 13, 2011

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30689

Credits: E-text prepared by David Clarke, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRASS BOTTLE ***


E-text prepared by David Clarke, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



THE BRASS BOTTLE

by

F. ANSTEY

First Published, October, 1900




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                 PAGE

    I. HORACE VENTIMORE RECEIVES A COMMISSION              1

   II. A CHEAP LOT                                        12

  III. AN UNEXPECTED OPENING                              18

   IV. AT LARGE                                           31

    V. CARTE BLANCHE                                      36

   VI. EMBARRAS DE RICHESSES                              51

  VII. "GRATITUDE--A LIVELY SENSE OF FAVOURS TO COME"     62

 VIII. BACHELOR'S QUARTERS                                75

   IX. "PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS"                    85

    X. NO PLACE LIKE HOME!                               107

   XI. A FOOL'S PARADISE                                 115

  XII. THE MESSENGER OF HOPE                             132

 XIII. A CHOICE OF EVILS                                 143

  XIV. "SINCE THERE'S NO HELP, COME, LET US KISS
         AND PART!"                                      158

   XV. BLUSHING HONOURS                                  174

  XVI. A KILLING FROST                                   182

 XVII. HIGH WORDS                                        193

XVIII. A GAME OF BLUFF                                   204

       THE EPILOGUE                                      222




THE BRASS BOTTLE




CHAPTER I

HORACE VENTIMORE RECEIVES A COMMISSION


"This day six weeks--just six weeks ago!" Horace Ventimore said, half
aloud, to himself, and pulled out his watch. "Half-past twelve--what was
I doing at half-past twelve?"

As he sat at the window of his office in Great Cloister Street,
Westminster, he made his thoughts travel back to a certain glorious
morning in August which now seemed so remote and irrecoverable. At this
precise time he was waiting on the balcony of the Hotel de la Plage--the
sole hostelry of St. Luc-en-Port, the tiny Normandy watering-place upon
which, by some happy inspiration, he had lighted during a solitary
cycling tour--waiting until She should appear.

He could see the whole scene: the tiny cove, with the violet shadow of
the cliff sleeping on the green water; the swell of the waves lazily
lapping against the diving-board from which he had plunged half an hour
before; he remembered the long swim out to the buoy; the exhilarated
anticipation with which he had dressed and climbed the steep path to the
hotel terrace.

For was he not to pass the whole remainder of that blissful day in
Sylvia Futvoye's society? Were they not to cycle together (there were,
of course, others of the party--but they did not count), to cycle over
to Veulettes, to picnic there under the cliff, and ride back--always
together--in the sweet-scented dusk, over the slopes, between the
poplars or the cornfields glowing golden against a sky of warm purple?

Now he saw himself going round to the gravelled courtyard in front of
the hotel with a sudden dread of missing her. There was nothing there
but the little low cart, with its canvas tilt which was to convey
Professor Futvoye and his wife to the place of _rendezvous_.

There was Sylvia at last, distractingly fair and fresh in her cool pink
blouse and cream-coloured skirt; how gracious and friendly and generally
delightful she had been throughout that unforgettable day, which was
supreme amongst others only a little less perfect, and all now fled for
ever!

They had had drawbacks, it was true. Old Futvoye was perhaps the least
bit of a bore at times, with his interminable disquisitions on Egyptian
art and ancient Oriental character-writing, in which he seemed convinced
that Horace must feel a perfervid interest, as, indeed, he thought it
politic to affect. The Professor was a most learned archaeologist, and
positively bulged with information on his favourite subjects; but it is
just possible that Horace might have been less curious concerning the
distinction between Cuneiform and Aramaean or Kufic and Arabic
inscriptions if his informant had happened to be the father of anybody
else. However, such insincerities as these are but so many evidences of
sincerity.

So with self-tormenting ingenuity Horace conjured up various pictures
from that Norman holiday of his: the little half-timbered cottages with
their faded blue shutters and the rushes growing out of their thatch
roofs; the spires of village churches gleaming above the bronze-green
beeches; the bold headlands, their ochre and yellow cliffs contrasting
grimly with the soft ridges of the turf above them; the tethered
black-and-white cattle grazing peacefully against a background of lapis
lazuli and malachite sea, and in every scene the sensation of Sylvia's
near presence, the sound of her voice in his ears. And now?... He looked
up from the papers and tracing-cloth on his desk, and round the small
panelled room which served him as an office, at the framed plans and
photographs, the set squares and T squares on the walls, and felt a dull
resentment against his surroundings. From his window he commanded a
cheerful view of a tall, mouldering wall, once part of the Abbey
boundaries, surmounted by _chevaux-de-frise_, above whose
rust-attenuated spikes some plane trees stretched their yellowing
branches.

"She would have come to care for me," Horace's thoughts ran on,
disjointedly. "I could have sworn that that last day of all--and her
people didn't seem to object to me. Her mother asked me cordially enough
to call on them when they were back in town. When I did----"

When he had called, there had been a difference--not an unusual sequel
to an acquaintanceship begun in a Continental watering-place. It was
difficult to define, but unmistakable--a certain formality and
constraint on Mrs. Futvoye's part, and even on Sylvia's, which seemed
intended to warn him that it is not every friendship that survives the
Channel passage. So he had gone away sore at heart, but fully
recognising that any advances in future must come from their side. They
might ask him to dinner, or at least to call again; but more than a
month had passed, and they had made no sign. No, it was all over; he
must consider himself dropped.

"After all," he told himself, with a short and anything but mirthful
laugh, "it's natural enough. Mrs. Futvoye has probably been making
inquiries about my professional prospects. It's better as it is. What
earthly chance have I got of marrying unless I can get work of my own?
It's all I can do to keep myself decently. I've no right to dream of
asking any one--to say nothing of Sylvia--to marry me. I should only be
rushing into temptation if I saw any more of her. She's not for a poor
beggar like me, who was born unlucky. Well, whining won't do any
good--let's have a look at Beevor's latest performance."

He spread out a large coloured plan, in a corner of which appeared the
name of "William Beevor, Architect," and began to study it in a spirit
of anything but appreciation.

"Beevor gets on," he said to himself. "Heaven knows that I don't grudge
him his success. He's a good fellow--though he _does_ build
architectural atrocities, and seem to like 'em. Who am I to give myself
airs? He's successful--I'm not. Yet if I only had his opportunities,
what wouldn't I make of them!"

Let it be said here that this was not the ordinary self-delusion of an
incompetent. Ventimore really had talent above the average, with ideals
and ambitions which might under better conditions have attained
recognition and fulfilment before this.

But he was not quite energetic enough, besides being too proud, to push
himself into notice, and hitherto he had met with persistent ill-luck.

So Horace had no other occupation now but to give Beevor, whose offices
and clerk he shared, such slight assistance as he might require, and it
was by no means cheering to feel that every year of this enforced
semi-idleness left him further handicapped in the race for wealth and
fame, for he had already passed his twenty-eighth birthday.

If Miss Sylvia Futvoye had indeed felt attracted towards him at one time
it was not altogether incomprehensible. Horace Ventimore was not a model
of manly beauty--models of manly beauty are rare out of novels, and
seldom interesting in them; but his clear-cut, clean-shaven face
possessed a certain distinction, and if there were faint satirical lines
about the mouth, they were redeemed by the expression of the grey-blue
eyes, which were remarkably frank and pleasant. He was well made, and
tall enough to escape all danger of being described as short;
fair-haired and pale, without being unhealthily pallid, in complexion,
and he gave the impression of being a man who took life as it came, and
whose sense of humour would serve as a lining for most clouds that might
darken his horizon.

There was a rap at the door which communicated with Beevor's office, and
Beevor himself, a florid, thick-set man, with small side-whiskers, burst
in.

"I say, Ventimore, you didn't run off with the plans for that house I'm
building at Larchmere, did you? Because--ah, I see you're looking over
them. Sorry to deprive you, but----"

"Thanks, old fellow, take them, by all means. I've seen all I wanted to
see."

"Well, I'm just off to Larchmere now. Want to be there to check the
quantities, and there's my other house at Fittlesdon. I must go on
afterwards and set it out, so I shall probably be away some days. I'm
taking Harrison down, too. You won't be wanting him, eh?"

Ventimore laughed. "I can manage to do nothing without a clerk to help
me. Your necessity is greater than mine. Here are the plans."

"I'm rather pleased with 'em myself, you know," said Beevor; "that roof
ought to look well, eh? Good idea of mine lightening the slate with that
ornamental tile-work along the top. You saw I put in one of your windows
with just a trifling addition. I was almost inclined to keep both gables
alike, as you suggested, but it struck me a little variety--one red
brick and the other 'parged'--would be more out-of-the-way."

"Oh, much," agreed Ventimore, knowing that to disagree was useless.

"Not, mind you," continued Beevor, "that I believe in going in for too
much originality in domestic architecture. The average client no more
wants an original house than he wants an original hat; he wants
something he won't feel a fool in. I've often thought, old man, that
perhaps the reason why you haven't got on----you don't mind my speaking
candidly, do you?"

"Not a bit," said Ventimore, cheerfully. "Candour's the cement of
friendship. Dab it on."

"Well, I was only going to say that you do yourself no good by all those
confoundedly unconventional ideas of yours. If you had your chance
to-morrow, it's my belief you'd throw it away by insisting on some
fantastic fad or other."

"These speculations are a trifle premature, considering that there
doesn't seem the remotest prospect of my ever getting a chance at all."

"I got mine before I'd set up six months," said Beevor. "The great
thing, however," he went on, with a flavour of personal application, "is
to know how to use it when it _does_ come. Well, I must be off if I mean
to catch that one o'clock from Waterloo. You'll see to anything that may
come in for me while I'm away, won't you, and let me know? Oh, by the
way, the quantity surveyor has just sent in the quantities for that
schoolroom at Woodford--do you mind running through them and seeing
they're right? And there's the specification for the new wing at
Tusculum Lodge--you might draft that some time when you've nothing else
to do. You'll find all the papers on my desk. Thanks awfully, old chap."

And Beevor hurried back to his own room, where for the next few minutes
he could be heard bustling Harrison, the clerk, to make haste; then a
hansom was whistled for, there were footsteps down the old stairs, the
sounds of a departing vehicle on the uneven stones, and after that
silence and solitude.

It was not in Nature to avoid feeling a little envious. Beevor had work
to do in the world: even if it chiefly consisted in profaning sylvan
retreats by smug or pretentious villas, it was still work which
entitled him to consideration and respect in the eyes of all
right-minded persons.

And nobody believed in Horace; as yet he had never known the
satisfaction of seeing the work of his brain realised in stone and brick
and mortar; no building stood anywhere to bear testimony to his
existence and capability long after he himself should have passed away.

It was not a profitable train of thought, and, to escape from it, he
went into Beevor's room and fetched the documents he had mentioned--at
least they would keep him occupied until it was time to go to his club
and lunch. He had no sooner settled down to his calculations, however,
when he heard a shuffling step on the landing, followed by a knock at
Beevor's office-door. "More work for Beevor," he thought; "what luck the
fellow has! I'd better go in and explain that he's just left town on
business."

But on entering the adjoining room he heard the knocking repeated--this
time at his own door; and hastening back to put an end to this somewhat
undignified form of hide-and-seek, he discovered that this visitor at
least was legitimately his, and was, in fact, no other than Professor
Anthony Futvoye himself.

The Professor was standing in the doorway peering short-sightedly
through his convex glasses, his head protruded from his loosely-fitting
great-coat with an irresistible suggestion of an inquiring tortoise. To
Horace his appearance was more welcome than that of the wealthiest
client--for why should Sylvia's father take the trouble to pay him this
visit unless he still wished to continue the acquaintanceship? It might
even be that he was the bearer of some message or invitation.

So, although to an impartial eye the Professor might not seem the kind
of elderly gentleman whose society would produce any wild degree of
exhilaration, Horace was unfeignedly delighted to see him.

"Extremely kind of you to come and see me like this, sir," he said
warmly, after establishing him in the solitary armchair reserved for
hypothetical clients.

"Not at all. I'm afraid your visit to Cottesmore Gardens some time ago
was somewhat of a disappointment."

"A disappointment?" echoed Horace, at a loss to know what was coming
next.

"I refer to the fact--which possibly, however, escaped your
notice"--explained the Professor, scratching his scanty patch of
grizzled whisker with a touch of irascibility, "that I myself was not at
home on that occasion."

"Indeed, I was greatly disappointed," said Horace, "though of course I
know how much you are engaged. It's all the more good of you to spare
time to drop in for a chat just now."

"I've not come to chat, Mr. Ventimore. I never chat. I wanted to see you
about a matter which I thought you might be so obliging as to---- But I
observe you are busy--probably too busy to attend to such a small
affair."

It was clear enough now; the Professor was going to build, and had
decided--could it be at Sylvia's suggestion?--to entrust the work to
him! But he contrived to subdue any self-betraying eagerness, and reply
(as he could with perfect truth) that he had nothing on hand just then
which he could not lay aside, and that if the Professor would let him
know what he required, he would take it up at once.

"So much the better," said the Professor; "so much the better. Both my
wife and daughter declared that it was making far too great a demand
upon your good nature; but, as I told them, 'I am much mistaken,' I
said, 'if Mr. Ventimore's practice is so extensive that he cannot leave
it for one afternoon----'"

Evidently it was not a house. Could he be needed to escort them
somewhere that afternoon? Even that was more than he had hoped for a few
minutes since. He hastened to repeat that he was perfectly free that
afternoon.

"In that case," said the Professor, beginning to fumble in all his
pockets--was he searching for a note in Sylvia's handwriting?--"in that
case, you will be conferring a real favour on me if you can make it
convenient to attend a sale at Hammond's Auction Rooms in Covent Garden,
and just bid for one or two articles on my behalf."

Whatever disappointment Ventimore felt, it may be said to his credit
that he allowed no sign of it to appear. "Of course I'll go, with
pleasure," he said, "if I can be of any use."

"I knew I shouldn't come to you in vain," said the Professor. "I
remembered your wonderful good nature, sir, in accompanying my wife and
daughter on all sorts of expeditions in the blazing hot weather we had
at St. Luc--when you might have remained quietly at the hotel with me.
Not that I should trouble you now, only I have to lunch at the Oriental
Club, and I've an appointment afterwards to examine and report on a
recently-discovered inscribed cylinder for the Museum, which will fully
occupy the rest of the afternoon, so that it's physically impossible for
me to go to Hammond's myself, and I strongly object to employing a
broker when I can avoid it. Where did I put that catalogue?... Ah, here
it is. This was sent to me by the executors of my old friend, General
Collingham, who died the other day. I met him at Nakada when I was out
excavating some years ago. He was something of a collector in his way,
though he knew very little about it, and, of course, was taken in right
and left. Most of his things are downright rubbish, but there are just a
few lots that are worth securing, at a reasonable figure, by some one
who knew what he was about."

"But, my dear Professor," remonstrated Horace, not relishing this
responsibility, "I'm afraid I'm as likely as not to pick up some of the
rubbish. I've no special knowledge of Oriental curios."

"At St. Luc," said the Professor, "you impressed me as having, for an
amateur, an exceptionally accurate and comprehensive acquaintance with
Egyptian and Arabian art from the earliest period." (If this were so,
Horace could only feel with shame what a fearful humbug he must have
been.) "However, I've no wish to lay too heavy a burden on you, and, as
you will see from this catalogue, I have ticked off the lots in which I
am chiefly interested, and made a note of the limit to which I am
prepared to bid, so you'll have no difficulty."

"Very well," said Horace; "I'll go straight to Covent Garden, and slip
out and get some lunch later on."

"Well, perhaps, if you don't mind. The lots I have marked seem to come
on at rather frequent intervals, but don't let that consideration deter
you from getting your lunch, and if you _should_ miss anything by not
being on the spot, why, it's of no consequence, though I don't say it
mightn't be a pity. In any case, you won't forget to mark what each lot
fetches, and perhaps you wouldn't mind dropping me a line when you
return the catalogue--or stay, could you look in some time after dinner
this evening, and let me know how you got on?--that would be better."

Horace thought it would be decidedly better, and undertook to call and
render an account of his stewardship that evening. There remained the
question of a deposit, should one or more of the lots be knocked down to
him; and, as he was obliged to own that he had not so much as ten pounds
about him at that particular moment, the Professor extracted a note for
that amount from his case, and handed it to him with the air of a
benevolent person relieving a deserving object. "Don't exceed my
limits," he said, "for I can't afford more just now; and mind you give
Hammond your own name, not mine. If the dealers get to know I'm after
the things, they'll run you up. And now, I don't think I need detain you
any longer, especially as time is running on. I'm sure I can trust you
to do the best you can for me. Till this evening, then."

A few minutes later Horace was driving up to Covent Garden behind the
best-looking horse he could pick out.

The Professor might have required from him rather more than was strictly
justified by their acquaintanceship, and taken his acquiescence too much
as a matter of course--but what of that? After all, he was Sylvia's
parent.

"Even with _my_ luck," he was thinking, "I ought to succeed in getting
at least one or two of the lots he's marked; and if I can only please
him, something may come of it."

And in this sanguine mood Horace entered Messrs. Hammond's well-known
auction rooms.




CHAPTER II

A CHEAP LOT


In spite of the fact that it was the luncheon hour when Ventimore
reached Hammond's Auction Rooms, he found the big, skylighted gallery
where the sale of the furniture and effects of the late General
Collingham was proceeding crowded to a degree which showed that the
deceased officer had some reputation as a _connoisseur_.

The narrow green baize tables below the auctioneer's rostrum were
occupied by professional dealers, one or two of them women, who sat,
paper and pencil in hand, with much the same air of apparent apathy and
real vigilance that may be noticed in the Casino at Monte Carlo. Around
them stood a decorous and businesslike crowd, mostly dealers, of various
types. On a magisterial-looking bench sat the auctioneer, conducting the
sale with a judicial impartiality and dignity which forbade him, even in
his most laudatory comments, the faintest accent of enthusiasm.

The October sunshine, striking through the glazed roof, re-gilded the
tarnished gas-stars, and suffused the dusty atmosphere with palest gold.
But somehow the utter absence of excitement in the crowd, the calm,
methodical tone of the auctioneer, and the occasional mournful cry of
"Lot here, gentlemen!" from the porter when any article was too large to
move, all served to depress Ventimore's usually mercurial spirits.

For all Horace knew, the collection as a whole might be of little value,
but it very soon became clear that others besides Professor Futvoye had
singled out such gems as there were, also that the Professor had
considerably under-rated the prices they were likely to fetch.

Ventimore made his bids with all possible discretion, but time after
time he found the competition for some perforated mosque lantern,
engraved ewer, or ancient porcelain tile so great that his limit was
soon reached, and his sole consolation was that the article eventually
changed hands for sums which were very nearly double the Professor's
estimate.

Several dealers and brokers, despairing of a bargain that day, left,
murmuring profanities; most of those who remained ceased to take a
serious interest in the proceedings, and consoled themselves with cheap
witticisms at every favourable occasion.

The sale dragged slowly on, and, what with continual disappointment and
want of food, Horace began to feel so weary that he was glad, as the
crowd thinned, to get a seat at one of the green baize tables, by which
time the skylights had already changed from livid grey to slate colour
in the deepening dusk.

A couple of meek Burmese Buddhas had just been put up, and bore the
indignity of being knocked down for nine-and-sixpence the pair with
dreamy, inscrutable simpers; Horace only waited for the final lot marked
by the Professor--an old Persian copper bowl, inlaid with silver and
engraved round the rim with an inscription from Hafiz.

The limit to which he was authorised to go was two pounds ten; but, so
desperately anxious was Ventimore not to return empty-handed, that he
had made up his mind to bid an extra sovereign if necessary, and say
nothing about it.

However, the bowl was put up, and the bidding soon rose to three pounds
ten, four pounds, four pounds ten, five pounds, five guineas, for which
last sum it was acquired by a bearded man on Horace's right, who
immediately began to regard his purchase with a more indulgent eye.

Ventimore had done his best, and failed; there was no reason now why he
should stay a moment longer--and yet he sat on, from sheer fatigue and
disinclination to move.

"Now we come to Lot 254, gentlemen," he heard the auctioneer saying,
mechanically; "a capital Egyptian mummy-case in fine con---- No, I beg
pardon, I'm wrong. This is an article which by some mistake has been
omitted from the catalogue, though it ought to have been in it.
Everything on sale to-day, gentlemen, belonged to the late General
Collingham. We'll call this No. 253_a_. Antique brass bottle. Very
curious."

One of the porters carried the bottle in between the tables, and set it
down before the dealers at the farther end with a tired nonchalance.

It was an old, squat, pot-bellied vessel, about two feet high, with a
long thick neck, the mouth of which was closed by a sort of metal
stopper or cap; there was no visible decoration on its sides, which were
rough and pitted by some incrustation that had formed on them, and been
partially scraped off. As a piece of _bric-a-brac_ it certainly
possessed few attractions, and there was a marked tendency to "guy" it
among the more frivolous brethren.

"What do you call this, sir?" inquired one of the auctioneer, with the
manner of a cheeky boy trying to get a rise out of his form-master. "Is
it as 'unique' as the others?"

"You're as well able to judge as I am," was the guarded reply. "Any one
can see for himself it's not modern rubbish."

"Make a pretty little ornament for the mantelpiece!" remarked a wag.

"Is the top made to unscrew, or what, sir?" asked a third. "Seems fixed
on pretty tight."

"I can't say. Probably it has not been removed for some time."

"It's a goodish weight," said the chief humorist, after handling it.
"What's inside of it, sir--sardines?"

"I don't represent it as having anything inside it," said the
auctioneer. "If you want to know my opinion, I think there's money in
it."

"'Ow much?"

"Don't misunderstand me, gentlemen. When I say I consider there's money
in it, I'm not alluding to its contents. I've no reason to believe that
it contains anything. I'm merely suggesting the thing itself may be
worth more than it looks."

"Ah, it might be _that_ without 'urting itself!"

"Well, well, don't let us waste time. Look upon it as a pure
speculation, and make me an offer for it, some of you. Come."

"Tuppence-'ap'ny!" cried the comic man, affecting to brace himself for a
mighty effort.

"Pray be serious, gentlemen. We want to get on, you know. Anything to
make a start. Five shillings? It's not the value of the metal, but I'll
take the bid. Six. Look at it well. It's not an article you come across
every day of your lives."

The bottle was still being passed round with disrespectful raps and
slaps, and it had now come to Ventimore's right-hand neighbour, who
scrutinised it carefully, but made no bid.

"That's all _right_, you know," he whispered in Horace's ear. "That's
good stuff, that is. If I was you, I'd _'ave_ that."

"Seven shillings--eight--nine bid for it over there in the corner," said
the auctioneer.

"If you think it's so good, why don't you have it yourself?" Horace
asked his neighbour.

"Me? Oh, well, it ain't exactly in my line, and getting this last lot
pretty near cleaned me out. I've done for to-day, I 'ave. All the same,
it is a curiosity; dunno as I've seen a brass vawse just that shape
before, and it's genuine old, though all these fellers are too ignorant
to know the value of it. So I don't mind giving you the tip."

Horace rose, the better to examine the top. As far as he could make out
in the flickering light of one of the gas-stars, which the auctioneer
had just ordered to be lit, there were half-erased scratches and
triangular marks on the cap that might possibly be an inscription. If
so, might there not be the means here of regaining the Professor's
favour, which he felt that, as it was, he should probably forfeit,
justly or not, by his ill-success?

He could hardly spend the Professor's money on it, since it was not in
the catalogue, and he had no authority to bid for it, but he had a few
shillings of his own to spare. Why not bid for it on his own account as
long as he could afford to do so? If he were outbid, as usual, it would
not particularly matter.

"Thirteen shillings," the auctioneer was saying, in his dispassionate
tones. Horace caught his eye, and slightly raised his catalogue, while
another man nodded at the same time. "Fourteen in two places." Horace
raised his catalogue again. "I won't go beyond fifteen," he thought.

"Fifteen. It's _against_ you, sir. Any advance on fifteen? Sixteen--this
very quaint old Oriental bottle going for only sixteen shillings.

"After all," thought Horace, "I don't mind anything under a pound for
it." And he bid seventeen shillings. "Eighteen," cried his rival, a
short, cheery, cherub-faced little dealer, whose neighbours adjured him
to "sit quiet like a good little boy and not waste his pocket-money."

"Nineteen!" said Horace. "Pound!" answered the cherubic man.

"A pound only bid for this grand brass vessel," said the auctioneer,
indifferently. "All done at a pound?"

Horace thought another shilling or two would not ruin him, and nodded.

"A guinea. For the last time. You'll _lose_ it, sir," said the
auctioneer to the little man.

"Go on, Tommy. Don't you be beat. Spring another bob on it, Tommy," his
friends advised him ironically; but Tommy shook his head, with the air
of a man who knows when to draw the line. "One guinea--and that's not
half its value! Gentleman on my left," said the auctioneer, more in
sorrow than in anger--and the brass bottle became Ventimore's property.

He paid for it, and, since he could hardly walk home nursing a large
metal bottle without attracting an inconvenient amount of attention,
directed that it should be sent to his lodgings at Vincent Square.

But when he was out in the fresh air, walking westward to his club, he
found himself wondering more and more what could have possessed him to
throw away a guinea--when he had few enough for legitimate expenses--on
an article of such exceedingly problematical value.




CHAPTER III

AN UNEXPECTED OPENING


Ventimore made his way to Cottesmore Gardens that evening in a highly
inconsistent, not to say chaotic, state of mind. The thought that he
would presently see Sylvia again made his blood course quicker, while he
was fully determined to say no more to her than civility demanded.

At one moment he was blessing Professor Futvoye for his happy thought in
making use of him; at another he was bitterly recognising that it would
have been better for his peace of mind if he had been left alone. Sylvia
and her mother had no desire to see more of him; if they had, they would
have asked him to come before this. No doubt they would tolerate him now
for the Professor's sake; but who would not rather be ignored than
tolerated?

The more often he saw Sylvia the more she would make his heart ache with
vain longing--whereas he was getting almost reconciled to her
indifference; he would very soon be cured if he didn't see her.

Why _should_ he see her? He need not go in at all. He had merely to
leave the catalogue with his compliments, and the Professor would learn
all he wanted to know.

On second thoughts he must go in--if only to return the bank-note. But
he would ask to see the Professor in private. Most probably he would not
be invited to join his wife and daughter, but if he were, he could make
some excuse. They might think it a little odd--a little discourteous,
perhaps; but they would be too relieved to care much about that.

When he got to Cottesmore Gardens, and was actually at the door of the
Futvoyes' house, one of the neatest and demurest in that retired and
irreproachable quarter, he began to feel a craven hope that the
Professor might be out, in which case he need only leave the catalogue
and write a letter when he got home, reporting his non-success at the
sale, and returning the note.

And, as it happened, the Professor _was_ out, and Horace was not so glad
as he thought he should be. The maid told him that the ladies were in
the drawing-room, and seemed to take it for granted that he was coming
in, so he had himself announced. He would not stay long--just long
enough to explain his business there, and make it clear that he had no
wish to force his acquaintance upon them. He found Mrs. Futvoye in the
farther part of the pretty double drawing-room, writing letters, and
Sylvia, more dazzlingly fair than ever in some sort of gauzy black frock
with a heliotrope sash and a bunch of Parma violets on her breast, was
comfortably established with a book in the front room, and seemed
surprised, if not resentful, at having to disturb herself.

"I must apologise," he began, with an involuntary stiffness, "for
calling at this very unceremonious time; but the fact is, the
Professor----"

"I know all about it," interrupted Mrs. Futvoye, brusquely, while her
shrewd, light-grey eyes took him in with a cool stare that was
humorously observant without being aggressive. "We heard how shamefully
my husband abused your good-nature. Really, it was too bad of him to ask
a busy man like you to put aside his work and go and spend a whole day
at that stupid auction!"

"Oh, I'd nothing particular to do. I can't call myself a busy
man--unfortunately," said Horace, with that frankness which scorns to
conceal what other people know perfectly well already.

"Ah, well, it's very nice of you to make light of it; but he ought not
to have done it--after so short an acquaintance, too. And to make it
worse, he has had to go out unexpectedly this evening, but he'll be back
before very long if you don't mind waiting."

"There's really no need to wait," said Horace, "because this catalogue
will tell him everything, and, as the particular things he wanted went
for much more than he thought, I wasn't able to get any of them."

"I'm sure I'm very glad of it," said Mrs. Futvoye, "for his study is
crammed with odds and ends as it is, and I don't want the whole house to
look like a museum or an antiquity shop. I'd all the trouble in the
world to persuade him that a great gaudy gilded mummy-case was not quite
the thing for a drawing-room. But, please sit down, Mr. Ventimore."

"Thanks," stammered Horace, "but--but I mustn't stay. If you will tell
the Professor how sorry I was to miss him, and--and give him back this
note which he left with me to cover any deposit, I--I won't interrupt
you any longer."

He was, as a rule, imperturbable in most social emergencies, but just
now he was seized with a wild desire to escape, which, to his infinite
mortification, made him behave like a shy schoolboy.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Futvoye; "I am sure my husband would be most
annoyed if we didn't keep you till he came."

"I really ought to go," he declared, wistfully enough.

"We mustn't tease Mr. Ventimore to stay, mother, when he so evidently
wants to go," said Sylvia, cruelly.

"Well, I won't detain you--at least, not long. I wonder if you would
mind posting a letter for me as you pass the pillar-box? I've almost
finished it, and it ought to go to-night, and my maid Jessie has such a
bad cold I really don't like sending her out with it."

It would have been impossible to refuse to stay after that--even if he
had wished. It would only be for a few minutes. Sylvia might spare him
that much of her time. He should not trouble her again. So Mrs. Futvoye
went back to her bureau, and Sylvia and he were practically alone.

She had taken a seat not far from his, and made a few constrained
remarks, obviously out of sheer civility. He returned mechanical
replies, with a dreary wonder whether this could really be the girl who
had talked to him with such charming friendliness and confidence only a
few weeks ago in Normandy.

And the worst of it was, she was looking more bewitching than ever; her
slim arms gleaming through the black lace of her sleeves, and the gold
threads in her soft masses of chestnut hair sparkling in the light of
the shaded lamp behind her. The slight contraction of her eyebrows and
the mutinous downward curve of her mouth seemed expressive of boredom.

"What a dreadfully long time mamma is over that letter!" she said at
last. "I think I'd better go and hurry her up."

"Please don't--unless you are particularly anxious to get rid of me."

"I thought you seemed particularly anxious to escape," she said coldly.
"And, as a family, we have certainly taken up quite enough of your time
for one day."

"That is not the way you used to talk at St. Luc!" he said.

"At St. Luc? Perhaps not. But in London everything is so different, you
see."

"Very different."

"When one meets people abroad who--who seem at all inclined to be
sociable," she continued, "one is so apt to think them pleasanter than
they really are. Then one meets them again, and--and wonders what one
ever saw to like in them. And it's no use pretending one feels the same,
because they generally understand sooner or later. Don't you find that?"

"I do, indeed," he said, wincing, "though I don't know what I've done to
deserve that you should tell me so!"

"Oh, I was not blaming you. You have been most angelic. I can't think
how papa could have expected you to take all that trouble for
him--still, you did, though you must have simply hated it."

"But, good heavens! don't you know I should be only too delighted to be
of the least service to him--or to any of you?"

"You looked anything but delighted when you came in just now; you looked
as if your one idea was to get it over as soon as you could. You know
perfectly well you're longing now for mother to finish her letter and
set you free. Do you really think I can't see that?"

"If all that is true, or partly true," said Horace, "can't you guess
why?"

"I guessed how it was when you called here first that afternoon. Mamma
had asked you to, and you thought you might as well be civil; perhaps
you really did think it would be pleasant to see us again--but it wasn't
the same thing. Oh, I saw it in your face directly--you became
conventional and distant and horrid, and it made me horrid too; and you
went away determined that you wouldn't see any more of us than you could
help. That's why I was so furious when I heard that papa had been to see
you, and with such an object."

All this was so near the truth, and yet missed it with such perverse
ingenuity, that Horace felt bound to put himself right.

"Perhaps I ought to leave things as they are," he said, "but I can't.
It's no earthly use, I know; but may I tell you why it really was
painful to me to meet you again? I thought _you_ were changed, that you
wished to forget, and wished me to forget--only I can't--that we had
been friends for a short time. And though I never blamed you--it was
natural enough--it hit me pretty hard--so hard that I didn't feel
anxious to repeat the experience."

"Did it hit you hard?" said Sylvia, softly. "Perhaps I minded too, just
a very little. However," she added, with a sudden smile, that made two
enchanting dimples in her cheeks, "it only shows how much more sensible
it is to have things out. _Now_ perhaps you won't persist in keeping
away from us?"

"I believe," said Horace, gloomily, still determined not to let any
direct avowal pass his lips, "it would be best that I _should_ keep
away."

Her half-closed eyes shone through their long lashes; the violets on her
breast rose and fell. "I don't think I understand," she said, in a tone
that was both hurt and offended.

There is a pleasure in yielding to some temptations that more than
compensates for the pain of any previous resistance. Come what might, he
was not going to be misunderstood any longer.

"If I must tell you," he said, "I've fallen desperately, hopelessly, in
love with you. Now you know the reason."

"It doesn't seem a very good reason for wanting to go away and never see
me again. _Does_ it?"

"Not when I've no right to speak to you of love?"

"But you've done that!"

"I know," he said penitently; "I couldn't help it. But I never meant to.
It slipped out. I quite understand how hopeless it is."

"Of course, if you are so sure as all that, you are quite right not to
try."

"Sylvia! You can't mean that--that you do care, after all?"

"Didn't you really see?" she said, with a low, happy laugh. "How stupid
of you! And how dear!"

He caught her hand, which she allowed to rest contentedly in his. "Oh,
Sylvia! Then you do--you do! But, my God, what a selfish brute I am! For
we can't marry. It may be years before I can ask you to come to me. You
father and mother wouldn't hear of your being engaged to me."

"_Need_ they hear of it just yet, Horace?"

"Yes, they must. I should feel a cur if I didn't tell your mother, at
all events."

"Then you shan't feel a cur, for we'll go and tell her together." And
Sylvia rose and went into the farther room, and put her arms round her
mother's neck. "Mother darling," she said, in a half whisper, "it's
really all your fault for writing such very long letters, but--but--we
don't exactly know how we came to do it--but Horace and I have got
engaged somehow. You aren't _very_ angry, are you?"

"I think you're both extremely foolish," said Mrs. Futvoye, as she
extricated herself from Sylvia's arms and turned to face Horace. "From
all I hear, Mr. Ventimore, you're not in a position to marry at
present."

"Unfortunately, no" said Horace; "I'm making nothing as yet. But my
chance must come some day. I don't ask you to give me Sylvia till then."

"And you know you like Horace, mother!" pleaded Sylvia. "And I'm ready
to wait for him, any time. Nothing will induce me to give him up, and I
shall never, never care for anybody else. So you see you may just as
well give us your consent!"

"I'm afraid I've been to blame," said Mrs. Futvoye. "I ought to have
foreseen this at St. Luc. Sylvia is our only child, Mr. Ventimore, and I
would far rather see her happily married than making what is called a
'grand match.' Still, this really does seem _rather_ hopeless. I am
quite sure her father would never approve of it. Indeed, it must not be
mentioned to him--he would only be irritated."

"So long as you are not against us," said Horace, "you won't forbid me
to see her?"

"I believe I ought to," said Mrs. Futvoye; "but I don't object to your
coming here occasionally, as an ordinary visitor. Only understand
this--until you can prove to my husband's satisfaction that you are able
to support Sylvia in the manner she has been accustomed to, there must
be no formal engagement. I think I am entitled to ask _that_ of you."

She was so clearly within her rights, and so much more indulgent than
Horace had expected--for he had always considered her an unsentimental
and rather worldly woman--that he accepted her conditions almost
gratefully. After all, it was enough for him that Sylvia returned his
love, and that he should be allowed to see her from time to time.

"It's rather a pity," said Sylvia, meditatively, a little later, when
her mother had gone back to her letter-writing, and she and Horace were
discussing the future; "it's rather a pity that you didn't manage to get
_something_ at that sale. It might have helped you with papa."

"Well, I did get something on my own account," he said, "though I don't
know whether it is likely to do me any good with your father." And he
told her how he had come to acquire the brass bottle.

"And you actually gave a guinea for it?" said Sylvia, "when you could
probably get exactly the same thing, only better, at Liberty's for about
seven-and-sixpence! Nothing of that sort has any charms for papa, unless
it's dirty and dingy and centuries old."

"This looks all that. I only bought it because, though it wasn't down on
the catalogue, I had a fancy that it might interest the Professor."

"Oh!" cried Sylvia, clasping her pretty hands, "if only it does, Horace!
If it turns out to be tremendously rare and valuable! I do believe dad
would be so delighted that he'd consent to anything. Ah, that's his step
outside ... he's letting himself in. Now mind you don't forget to tell
him about that bottle."

The Professor did not seem in the sweetest of humours as he entered the
drawing-room. "Sorry I was obliged to be from home, and there was nobody
but my wife and daughter here to entertain you. But I am glad you
stayed--yes, I'm rather glad you stayed."

"So am I, sir," said Horace, and proceeded to give his account of the
sale, which did not serve to improve the Professor's temper. He thrust
out his under lip at certain items in the catalogue. "I wish I'd gone
myself," he said; "that bowl, a really fine example of sixteenth-century
Persian work, going for only five guineas! I'd willingly have given ten
for it. There, there, I thought I could have depended on you to use your
judgment better than that!"

"If you remember, sir, you strictly limited me to the sums you marked."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, testily; "my marginal notes
were merely intended as indications, no more. You might have known that
if you had secured one of the things at any price I should have
approved."

Horace had no grounds for knowing anything of the kind, and much reason
for believing the contrary, but he saw no use in arguing the matter
further, and merely said he was sorry to have misunderstood.

"No doubt the fault was mine," said the Professor, in a tone that
implied the opposite. "Still, making every allowance for inexperience in
these matters, I should have thought it impossible for any one to spend
a whole day bidding at a place like Hammond's without even securing a
single article."

"But, dad," put in Sylvia, "Mr. Ventimore did get _one_ thing--on his
own account. It's a brass bottle, not down in the catalogue, but he
thinks it may be worth something perhaps. And he'd very much like to
have your opinion."

"Tchah!" said the Professor. "Some modern bazaar work, most probably.
He'd better have kept his money. What was this bottle of yours like,
now, eh?"

Horace described it.

"H'm. Seems to be what the Arabs call a 'kum-kum,' probably used as a
sprinkler, or to hold rose-water. Hundreds of 'em about," commented the
Professor, crustily.

"It had a lid, riveted or soldered on," said Horace; "the general shape
was something like this ..." And he made a rapid sketch from memory,
which the Professor took reluctantly, and then adjusted his glasses with
some increase of interest.

"Ha--the form is antique, certainly. And the top hermetically fastened,
eh? That looks as if it might contain something."

"You don't think it has a genie inside, like the sealed jar the
fisherman found in the 'Arabian Nights'?" cried Sylvia. "What fun if it
had!"

"By genie, I presume you mean a _Jinnee_, which is the more correct and
scholarly term," said the Professor. "Female, _Jinneeyeh_, and plural
_Jinn_. No, I do _not_ contemplate that as a probable contingency. But
it is not quite impossible that a vessel closed as Mr. Ventimore
describes may have been designed as a receptacle for papyri or other
records of archaeological interest, which may be still in preservation. I
should recommend you, sir, to use the greatest precaution in removing
the lid--don't expose the documents, if any, too suddenly to the outer
air, and it would be better if you did not handle them yourself. I shall
be rather curious to hear whether it really does contain anything, and
if so, what."

"I will open it as carefully as possible," said Horace, "and whatever it
may contain, you may rely upon my letting you know at once."

He left shortly afterwards, encouraged by the radiant trust in Sylvia's
eyes, and thrilled by the secret pressure of her hand at parting.

He had been amply repaid for all the hours he had spent in the close
sale-room. His luck had turned at last: he was going to succeed; he felt
it in the air, as if he were already fanned by Fortune's pinions.

Still thinking of Sylvia, he let himself into the semi-detached,
old-fashioned house on the north side of Vincent Square, where he had
lodged for some years. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and his landlady,
Mrs. Rapkin, and her husband had already gone to bed.

Ventimore went up to his sitting-room, a comfortable apartment with two
long windows opening on to a trellised verandah and balcony--a room
which, as he had furnished and decorated it himself to suit his own
tastes, had none of the depressing ugliness of typical lodgings.

It was quite dark, for the season was too mild for a fire, and he had to
grope for the matches before he could light his lamp. After he had done
so and turned up the wicks, the first object he saw was the bulbous,
long-necked jar which he had bought that afternoon, and which now stood
on the stained boards near the mantelpiece. It had been delivered with
unusual promptitude!

Somehow he felt a sort of repulsion at the sight of it. "It's a
beastlier-looking object than I thought," he said to himself
disgustedly. "A chimney-pot would be about as decorative and appropriate
in my room. What a thundering ass I was to waste a guinea on it! I
wonder if there really is anything inside it. It is so infernally ugly
that it _ought_ to be useful. The Professor seemed to fancy it might
hold documents, and he ought to know. Anyway, I'll find out before I
turn in."

He grasped it by its long, thick neck, and tried to twist the cap off;
but it remained firm, which was not surprising, seeing that it was
thickly coated with a lava-like crust.

"I must get some of that off first, and then try again," he decided; and
after foraging downstairs, he returned with a hammer and chisel, with
which he chipped away the crust till the line of the cap was revealed,
and an uncouth metal knob that seemed to be a catch.

This he tapped sharply for some time, and again attempted to wrench off
the lid. Then he gripped the vessel between his knees and put forth all
his strength, while the bottle seemed to rock and heave under him in
sympathy. The cap was beginning to give way, very slightly; one last
wrench--and it came off in his hand with such suddenness that he was
flung violently backwards, and hit the back of his head smartly against
an angle of the wainscot.

He had a vague impression of the bottle lying on its side, with dense
volumes of hissing, black smoke pouring out of its mouth and towering up
in a gigantic column to the ceiling; he was conscious, too, of a pungent
and peculiarly overpowering perfume. "I've got hold of some sort of
infernal machine," he thought, "and I shall be all over the square in
less than a second!" And, just as he arrived at this cheerful
conclusion, he lost consciousness altogether.

He could not have been unconscious for more than a few seconds, for when
he opened his eyes the room was still thick with smoke, through which he
dimly discerned the figure of a stranger, who seemed of abnormal and
almost colossal height. But this must have been an optical illusion
caused by the magnifying effects of the smoke; for, as it cleared, his
visitor proved to be of no more than ordinary stature. He was elderly,
and, indeed, venerable of appearance, and wore an Eastern robe and
head-dress of a dark-green hue. He stood there with uplifted hands,
uttering something in a loud tone and a language unknown to Horace.

Ventimore, being still somewhat dazed, felt no surprise at seeing him.
Mrs. Rapkin must have let her second floor at last--to some Oriental. He
would have preferred an Englishman as a fellow-lodger, but this
foreigner must have noticed the smoke and rushed in to offer assistance,
which was both neighbourly and plucky of him.

"Awfully good of you to come in, sir," he said, as he scrambled to his
feet. "I don't know what's happened exactly, but there's no harm done.
I'm only a trifle shaken, that's all. By the way, I suppose you can
speak English?"

"Assuredly I can speak so as to be understood by all whom I address,"
answered the stranger.

"Dost thou not understand my speech?"

"Perfectly, now," said Horace. "But you made a remark just now which I
didn't follow--would you mind repeating it?"

"I said: 'Repentance, O Prophet of God! I will not return to the like
conduct ever.'"

"Ah," said Horace. "I dare say you _were_ rather startled. So was I when
I opened that bottle."

"Tell me--was it indeed thy hand that removed the seal, O young man of
kindness and good works?"

"I certainly did open it," said Ventimore, "though I don't know where
the kindness comes in--for I've no notion what was inside the thing."

"I was inside it," said the stranger, calmly.




CHAPTER IV

AT LARGE


"So _you_ were inside that bottle, were you?" said Horace, blandly. "How
singular!" He began to realise that he had to deal with an Oriental
lunatic, and must humour him to some extent. Fortunately he did not seem
at all dangerous, though undeniably eccentric-looking. His hair fell in
disorderly profusion from under his high turban about his cheeks, which
were of a uniform pale rhubarb tint; his grey beard streamed out in
three thin strands, and his long, narrow eyes, opal in hue, and set
rather wide apart and at a slight angle, had a curious expression, part
slyness and part childlike simplicity.

"Dost thou doubt that I speak truth? I tell thee that I have been
confined in that accursed vessel for countless centuries--how long, I
know not, for it is beyond calculation."

"I should hardly have thought from your appearance, sir, that you had
been so many years in bottle as all that," said Horace, politely, "but
it's certainly time you had a change. May I, if it isn't indiscreet, ask
how you came into such a very uncomfortable position? But probably you
have forgotten by this time."

"Forgotten!" said the other, with a sombre red glow in his opal eyes.
"Wisely was it written: 'Let him that desireth oblivion confer
benefits--but the memory of an injury endureth for ever.' _I_ forget
neither benefits nor injuries."

"An old gentleman with a grievance," thought Ventimore. "And mad into
the bargain. Nice person to have staying in the same house with one!"

"Know, O best of mankind," continued the stranger, "that he who now
addresses thee is Fakrash-el-Aamash, one of the Green Jinn. And I dwelt
in the Palace of the Mountain of the Clouds above the City of Babel in
the Garden of Irem, which thou doubtless knowest by repute?"

"I fancy I _have_ heard of it," said Horace, as if it were an address in
the Court Directory. "Delightful neighbourhood."

"I had a kinswoman, Bedeea-el-Jemal, who possessed incomparable beauty
and manifold accomplishments. And seeing that, though a Jinneeyeh, she
was of the believing Jinn, I despatched messengers to Suleyman the
Great, the son of Daood, offering him her hand in marriage. But a
certain Jarjarees, the son of Rejmoos, the son of Iblees--may he be for
ever accursed!--looked with favour upon the maiden, and, going secretly
unto Suleyman, persuaded him that I was preparing a crafty snare for the
King's undoing."

"And, of course, _you_ never thought of such a thing?" said Ventimore.

"By a venomous tongue the fairest motives may be rendered foul," was the
somewhat evasive reply. "Thus it came to pass that Suleyman--on whom be
peace!--listened unto the voice of Jarjarees and refused to receive the
maiden. Moreover, he commanded that I should be seized and imprisoned in
a bottle of brass and cast into the Sea of El-Karkar, there to abide the
Day of Doom."

"Too bad--really too bad!" murmured Horace, in a tone that he could only
hope was sufficiently sympathetic.

"But now, by thy means, O thou of noble ancestors and gentle
disposition, my deliverance hath been accomplished; and if I were to
serve thee for a thousand years, regarding nothing else, even thus could
I not requite thee, and my so doing would be a small thing according to
thy desserts!"

"Pray don't mention it," said Horace; "only too pleased if I've been of
any use to you."

"In the sky it is written upon the pages of the air: 'He who doth kind
actions shall experience the like.' Am I not an Efreet of the Jinn?
Demand, therefore, and thou shalt receive."

"Poor old chap!" thought Horace, "he's very cracked indeed. He'll be
wanting to give me a present of some sort soon--and of course I can't
have that.... My dear Mr. Fakrash," he said aloud, "I've done
nothing--nothing at all--and if I had, I couldn't possibly accept any
reward for it."

"What are thy names, and what calling dost thou follow?"

"I ought to have introduced myself before--let me give you my card;" and
Ventimore gave him one, which the other took and placed in his girdle.
"That's my business address. I'm an architect, if you know what that
is--a man who builds houses and churches--mosques, you know--in fact,
anything, when he can get it to build."

"A useful calling indeed--and one to be rewarded with fine gold."

"In my case," Horace confessed, "the reward has been too fine to be
perceived. In other words, I've never _been_ rewarded, because I've
never yet had the luck to get a client."

"And what is this client of whom thou speakest?"

"Oh, well, some well-to-do merchant who wants a house built for him and
doesn't care how much he spends on it. There must be lots of them
about--but they never seem to come in _my_ direction."

"Grant me a period of delay, and, if it be possible, I will procure thee
such a client."

Horace could not help thinking that any recommendation from such a
quarter would hardly carry much weight; but, as the poor old man
evidently imagined himself under an obligation, which he was anxious to
discharge, it would have been unkind to throw cold water on his good
intentions.

"My dear sir," he said lightly, "if you _should_ come across that
particular type of client, and can contrive to impress him with the
belief that I'm just the architect he's looking out for--which, between
ourselves, I am, though nobody's discovered it yet--if you can get him
to come to me, you will do me the very greatest service I could ever
hope for. But don't give yourself any trouble over it."

"It will be one of the easiest things that can be," said his visitor,
"that is" (and here a shade of rather pathetic doubt crossed his face)
"provided that anything of my former power yet remains unto me."

"Well, never mind, sir," said Horace; "if you can't, I shall take the
will for the deed."

"First of all, it will be prudent to learn where Suleyman is, that I may
humble myself before him and make my peace."

"Yes," said Horace, gently, "I would. I should make a point of that,
sir. Not _now_, you know. He might be in bed. To-morrow morning."

"This is a strange place that I am in, and I know not yet in what
direction I should seek him. But till I have found him, and justified
myself in his sight, and had my revenge upon Jarjarees, mine enemy, I
shall know no rest."

"Well, but go to bed now, like a sensible old chap," said Horace,
soothingly, anxious to prevent this poor demented Asiatic from falling
into the hands of the police. "Plenty of time to go and call on Suleyman
to-morrow."

"I will search for him, even unto the uttermost ends of the earth!"

"That's right--you're sure to find him in one of them. Only, don't you
see, it's no use starting to-night--the last trains have gone long ago."
As he spoke, the night wind bore across the square the sound of Big Ben
striking the quarters in Westminster Clock Tower, and then, after a
pause, the solemn boom that announced the first of the small hours.
"To-morrow," thought Ventimore, "I'll speak to Mrs. Rapkin, and get her
to send for a doctor and have him put under proper care--the poor old
boy really isn't fit to go about alone!"

"I will start now--at once," insisted the stranger "for there is no time
to be lost."

"Oh, come!" said Horace, "after so many thousand years, a few hours more
or less won't make any serious difference. And you _can't_ go out
now--they've shut up the house. Do let me take you upstairs to your
room, sir."

"Not so, for I must leave thee for a season, O young man of kind
conduct. But may thy days be fortunate, and the gate never cease to be
repaired, and the nose of him that envieth thee be rubbed in the dust,
for love for thee hath entered into my heart, and if it be permitted
unto me, I will cover thee with the veils of my protection!"

As he finished this harangue the speaker seemed, to Ventimore's
speechless amazement, to slip through the wall behind him. At all
events, he had left the room somehow--and Horace found himself alone.

He rubbed the back of his head, which began to be painful. "He can't
really have vanished through the wall," he said to himself. "That's too
absurd. The fact is, I'm over-excited this evening--and no wonder, after
all that's happened. The best thing I can do is to go to bed at once."

Which he accordingly proceeded to do.




CHAPTER V

CARTE BLANCHE


When Ventimore woke next morning his headache had gone, and with it the
recollection of everything but the wondrous and delightful fact that
Sylvia loved him and had promised to be his some day. Her mother, too,
was on his side; why should he despair of anything after that? There was
the Professor, to be sure--but even he might be brought to consent to an
engagement, especially if it turned out that the brass bottle ... and
here Horace began to recall an extraordinary dream in connection with
that extremely speculative purchase of his. He had dreamed that he had
forced the bottle open, and that it proved to contain, not manuscripts,
but an elderly Jinnee who alleged that he had been imprisoned there by
the order of King Solomon!

What, he wondered, could have put so grotesque a fancy into his head?
and then he smiled as he traced it to Sylvia's playful suggestion that
the bottle might contain a "genie," as did the famous jar in the
"Arabian Nights," and to her father's pedantic correction of the word to
"Jinnee." Upon that slight foundation his sleeping brain had built up
all that elaborate fabric--a scene so vivid and a story so
circumstantial and plausible that, in spite of its extravagance, he
could hardly even now persuade himself that it was entirely imaginary.
The psychology of dreams is a subject which has a fascinating mystery,
even for the least serious student.

As he entered the sitting-room, where his breakfast awaited him, he
looked round, half expecting to find the bottle lying with its lid off
in the corner, as he had last seen it in his dream.

Of course, it was not there, and he felt an odd relief. The
auction-room people had not delivered it yet, and so much the better,
for he had still to ascertain if it had anything inside it; and who knew
that it might not contain something more to his advantage than a
maundering old Jinnee with a grievance several thousands of years old?

Breakfast over, he rang for his landlady, who presently appeared. Mrs.
Rapkin was a superior type of her much-abused class. She was
scrupulously clean and neat in her person; her sandy hair was so smooth
and tightly knotted that it gave her head the colour and shape of a
Barcelona nut; she had sharp, beady eyes, nostrils that seemed to smell
battle afar off, a wide, thin mouth that apparently closed with a snap,
and a dry, whity-brown complexion suggestive of bran.

But if somewhat grim of aspect, she was a good soul and devoted to
Horace, in whom she took almost a maternal interest, while regretting
that he was not what she called "serious-minded enough" to get on in the
world. Rapkin had wooed and married her when they were both in service,
and he still took occasional jobs as an outdoor butler, though Horace
suspected that his more staple form of industry was the consumption of
gin-and-water and remarkably full-flavoured cigars in the basement
parlour.

"Shall you be dining in this evening, sir?" inquired Mrs. Rapkin.

"I don't know. Don't get anything in for me; I shall most probably dine
at the club," said Horace; and Mrs. Rapkin, who had a confirmed belief
that all clubs were hotbeds of vice and extravagance, sniffed
disapproval. "By the way," he added, "if a kind of brass pot is sent
here, it's all right. I bought it at a sale yesterday. Be careful how
you handle it--it's rather old."

"There _was_ a vawse come late last night, sir; I don't know if it's
that, it's old-fashioned enough."

"Then will you bring it up at once, please? I want to see it."

Mrs. Rapkin retired, to reappear presently with the brass bottle. "I
thought you'd have noticed it when you come in last night, sir," she
explained, "for I stood it in the corner, and when I see it this morning
it was layin' o' one side and looking that dirty and disrespectable I
took it down to give it a good clean, which it wanted it."

It certainly looked rather the better for it, and the marks or scratches
on the cap were more distinguishable, but Horace was somewhat
disconcerted to find that part of his dream was true--the bottle had
been there.

"I hope I've done nothing wrong," said Mrs. Rapkin, observing his
expression; "I only used a little warm ale to it, which is a capital
thing for brass-work, and gave it a scrub with 'Vitrolia' soap--but it
would take more than that to get all the muck off of it."

"It is all right, so long as you didn't try to get the top off," said
Horace.

"Why, the top _was_ off it, sir. I thought you'd done it with the 'ammer
and chisel when you got 'ome," said his landlady, staring. "I found them
'ere on the carpet."

Horace started. Then _that_ part was true, too! "Oh, ah," he said, "I
believe I did. I'd forgotten. That reminds me. Haven't you let the room
above to--to an Oriental gentleman--a native, you know--wears a green
turban?"

"That I most certainly 'ave _not_, Mr. Ventimore," said Mrs. Rapkin,
with emphasis, "nor wouldn't. Not if his turbin was all the colours of
the rainbow--for I don't 'old with such. Why, there was Rapkin's own
sister-in-law let her parlour floor to a Horiental--a Parsee _he_ was,
or _one_ o' them Hafrican tribes--and reason she 'ad to repent of it,
for all his gold spectacles! Whatever made you fancy I should let to a
blackamoor?"

"Oh, I thought I saw somebody about--er--answering that description,
and I wondered if----"

"Never in _this_ 'ouse, sir. Mrs. Steggars, next door but one, might let
to such, for all I can say to the contrary, not being what you might
call particular, and her rooms more suitable to savage notions--but I've
enough on _my_ hands, Mr. Ventimore, attending to you--not keeping a
girl to do the waiting, as why should I while I'm well able to do it
better myself?"

As soon as she relieved him of her presence, he examined the bottle:
there was nothing whatever inside it, which disposed of all the hopes he
had entertained from that quarter.

It was not difficult to account for the visionary Oriental as an
hallucination probably inspired by the heavy fumes (for he now believed
in the fumes) which had doubtless resulted from the rapid decomposition
of some long-buried spices or similar substances suddenly exposed to the
air.

If any further explanation were needed, the accidental blow to the back
of his head, together with the latent suggestion from the "Arabian
Nights," would amply provide it.

So, having settled these points to his entire satisfaction, he went to
his office in Great Cloister Street, which he now had entirely to
himself, and was soon engaged in drafting the specification for Beevor
on which he had been working when so fortunately interrupted the day
before by the Professor.

The work was more or less mechanical, and could bring him no credit and
little thanks, but Horace had the happy faculty of doing thoroughly
whatever he undertook, and as he sat there by his wide-open window he
soon became entirely oblivious of all but the task before him.

So much so that, even when the light became obscured for a moment, as if
by some large and opaque body in passing, he did not look up
immediately, and, when he did, was surprised to find the only armchair
occupied by a portly person, who seemed to be trying to recover his
breath.

"I beg your pardon," said Ventimore; "I never heard you come in."

His visitor could only wave his head in courteous deprecation, under
which there seemed a suspicion of bewildered embarrassment. He was a
rosy-gilled, spotlessly clean, elderly gentleman, with white whiskers;
his eyes, just then slightly protuberant, were shrewd, but genial; he
had a wide, jolly mouth and a double chin. He was dressed like a man who
is above disguising his prosperity; he wore a large, pear-shaped pearl
in his crimson scarf, and had probably only lately discarded his summer
white hat and white waistcoat.

"My dear sir," he began, in a rich, throaty voice, as soon as he could
speak; "my dear sir, you must think this is a most unceremonious way
of--ah!--dropping in on you--of invading your privacy."

"Not at all," said Horace, wondering whether he could possibly intend
him to understand that he had come in by the window. "I'm afraid there
was no one to show you in--my clerk is away just now."

"No matter, sir, no matter. I found my way up, as you perceive. The
important, I may say the essential, fact is that I _am_ here."

"Quite so," said Horace, "and may I ask what brought you?"

"What brought----" The stranger's eyes grew fish-like for the moment.
"Allow me, I--I shall come to that--in good time. I am still a
little--as you can see." He glanced round the room. "You are, I think,
an architect, Mr. ah--Mr. um----?"

"Ventimore is my name," said Horace, "and I _am_ an architect."

"Ventimore, to be sure!" he put his hand in his pocket and produced a
card: "Yes, it's all quite correct: I see I have the name here. And an
architect, Mr. Ventimore, so I--I am given to understand, of immense
ability."

"I'm afraid I can't claim to be that," said Horace, "but I may call
myself fairly competent."

"Competent? Why, of _course_ you're competent. Do you suppose, sir, that
I, a practical business man, should come to any one who was _not_
competent?" he said, with exactly the air of a man trying to convince
himself--against his own judgment--that he was acting with the utmost
prudence.

"Am I to understand that some one has been good enough to recommend me
to you?" inquired Horace.

"Certainly not, sir, certainly not. _I_ need no recommendation but my
own judgment. I--ah--have a tolerable acquaintance with all that is
going on in the art world, and I have come to the conclusion,
Mr.--eh--ah--Ventimore, I repeat, the deliberate and unassisted
conclusion, that you are the one man living who can do what I want."

"Delighted to hear it," said Horace, genuinely gratified. "When did you
see any of my designs?"

"Never mind, sir. I don't decide without very good grounds. It
doesn't take me long to make up my mind, and when my mind is made
up, I act, sir, I act. And, to come to the point, I have a small
commission--unworthy, I am quite aware, of your--ah--distinguished
talent--which I should like to put in your hands."

"Is _he_ going to ask me to attend a sale for him?" thought Horace. "I'm
hanged if I do."

"I'm rather busy at present," he said dubiously, "as you may see. I'm
not sure whether----"

"I'll put the matter in a nutshell, sir--in a nutshell. My name is
Wackerbath, Samuel Wackerbath--tolerably well known, if I may say so, in
City circles." Horace, of course, concealed the fact that his visitor's
name and fame were unfamiliar to him. "I've lately bought a few acres on
the Hampshire border, near the house I'm living in just now; and I've
been thinking--as I was saying to a friend only just now, as we were
crossing Westminster Bridge--I've been thinking of building myself a
little place there, just a humble, unpretentious home, where I could run
down for the weekend and entertain a friend or two in a quiet way, and
perhaps live some part of the year. Hitherto I've rented places as I
wanted 'em--old family seats and ancestral mansions and so forth: very
nice in their way, but I want to feel under a roof of my own. I want to
surround myself with the simple comforts, the--ah--unassuming elegance
of an English country home. And you're the man--I feel more convinced of
it with every word you say--you're the man to do the job in
style--ah--to execute the work as it should be done."

Here was the long-wished-for client at last! And it was satisfactory to
feel that he had arrived in the most ordinary and commonplace course,
for no one could look at Mr. Samuel Wackerbath and believe for a moment
that he was capable of floating through an upper window; he was not in
the least that kind of person.

"I shall be happy to do my best," said Horace, with a calmness that
surprised himself. "Could you give me some idea of the amount you are
prepared to spend?"

"Well, I'm no Croesus--though I won't say I'm a pauper precisely--and,
as I remarked before, I prefer comfort to splendour. I don't think I
should be justified in going beyond--well, say sixty thousand."

"Sixty thousand!" exclaimed Horace, who had expected about a tenth of
that sum. "Oh, not _more_ than sixty thousand? I see."

"I mean, on the house itself," explained Mr. Wackerbath; "there will be
outbuildings, lodges, cottages, and so forth, and then some of the rooms
I should want specially decorated. Altogether, before we are finished,
it may work out at about a hundred thousand. I take it that, with such a
margin, you could--ah--run me up something that in a modest way would
take the shine out of--I mean to say eclipse--anything in the adjoining
counties?"

"I certainly think," said Horace, "that for such a sum as that I can
undertake that you shall have a home which will satisfy you." And he
proceeded to put the usual questions as to site, soil, available
building materials, the accommodation that would be required, and so on.

"You're young, sir," said Mr. Wackerbath, at the end of the interview,
"but I perceive you are up to all the tricks of the--I _should_ say,
versed in the _minutiae_ of your profession. You would like to run down
and look at the ground, eh? Well, that's only reasonable; and my wife
and daughters will want to have _their_ say in the matter--no getting on
without pleasing the ladies, hey? Now, let me see. To-morrow's Sunday.
Why not come down by the 8.45 a.m. to Lipsfield? I'll have a trap, or a
brougham and pair, or something, waiting for you--take you over the
ground myself, bring you back to lunch with us at Oriel Court, and talk
the whole thing thoroughly over. Then we'll send you up to town in the
evening, and you can start work the first thing on Monday. That suit
you? Very well, then. We'll expect you to-morrow."

With this Mr. Wackerbath departed, leaving Horace, as may be imagined,
absolutely overwhelmed by the suddenness and completeness of his good
fortune. He was no longer one of the unemployed: he had work to do, and,
better still, work that would interest him, give him all the scope and
opportunity he could wish for. With a client who seemed tractable, and
to whom money was clearly no object, he might carry out some of his most
ambitious ideas.

Moreover, he would now be in a position to speak to Sylvia's father
without fear of a repulse. His commission on L60,000 would be L3,000,
and that on the decorations and other work at least as much
again--probably more. In a year he could marry without imprudence; in
two or three years he might be making a handsome income, for he felt
confident that, with such a start, he would soon have as much work as he
could undertake.

He was ashamed of himself for ever having lost heart. What were the last
few years of weary waiting but probation and preparation for this
splendid chance, which had come just when he really needed it, and in
the most simple and natural manner?

He loyally completed the work he had promised to do for Beevor, who
would have to dispense with his assistance in future, and then he felt
too excited and restless to stay in the office, and, after lunching at
his club as usual, he promised himself the pleasure of going to
Cottesmore Gardens and telling Sylvia his good news.

It was still early, and he walked the whole way, as some vent for his
high spirits, enjoying everything with a new zest--the dappled grey and
salmon sky before him, the amber, russet, and yellow of the scanty
foliage in Kensington Gardens, the pungent scent of fallen chestnuts and
acorns and burning leaves, the blue-grey mist stealing between the
distant tree-trunks, and then the cheery bustle and brilliancy of the
High Street. Finally came the joy of finding Sylvia all alone, and
witnessing her frank delight at what he had come to tell her, of feeling
her hands on his shoulders, and holding her in his arms, as their lips
met for the first time. If on that Saturday afternoon there was a
happier man than Horace Ventimore, he would have done well to dissemble
his felicity, for fear of incurring the jealousy of the high gods.

When Mrs. Futvoye returned, as she did only too soon, to find her
daughter and Horace seated on the same sofa, she did not pretend to be
gratified. "This is taking a most unfair advantage of what I was weak
enough to say last night, Mr. Ventimore," she began. "I thought I could
have trusted you!"

"I shouldn't have come so soon," he said, "if my position were what it
was only yesterday. But it's changed since then, and I venture to hope
that even the Professor won't object now to our being regularly
engaged." And he told her of the sudden alteration in his prospects.

"Well," said Mrs. Futvoye, "you had better speak to my husband about
it."

The Professor came in shortly afterwards, and Horace immediately
requested a few minutes' conversation with him in the study, which was
readily granted.

The study to which the Professor led the way was built out at the back
of the house, and crowded with Oriental curios of every age and kind;
the furniture had been made by Cairene cabinet-makers, and along the
cornices of the book-cases were texts from the Koran, while every chair
bore the Arabic for "Welcome" in a gilded firework on its leather back;
the lamp was a perforated mosque lantern with long pendent glass tubes
like hyacinth glasses; a mummy-case smiled from a corner with laboured
_bonhomie_.

"Well," began the Professor, as soon as they were seated, "so I was not
mistaken--there was something in the brass bottle after all, then? Let's
have a look at it, whatever it is."

For the moment Horace had almost forgotten the bottle. "Oh!" he said,
"I--I got it open; but there was nothing in it."

"Just as I anticipated, sir," said the Professor. "I told you there
couldn't be anything in a bottle of that description; it was simply
throwing money away to buy it."

"I dare say it was, but I wished to speak to you on a much more
important matter;" and Horace briefly explained his object.

"Dear me," said the Professor, rubbing up his hair irritably, "dear me!
I'd no idea of this--no idea at all. I was under the impression that you
volunteered to act as escort to my wife and daughter at St. Luc purely
out of good nature to relieve me from what--to a man of my habits in
that extreme heat--would have been an arduous and distasteful duty."

"I was not wholly unselfish, I admit," said Horace. "I fell in love with
your daughter, sir, the first day I met her--only I felt I had no right,
as a poor man with no prospects, to speak to her or you at that time."

"A very creditable feeling--but I've yet to learn why you should have
overcome it."

So, for the third time, Ventimore told the story of the sudden turn in
his fortunes.

"I know this Mr. Samuel Wackerbath by name," said the Professor; "one of
the chief partners in the firm of Akers and Coverdale, the great estate
agents--a most influential man, if you can only succeed in satisfying
him."

"Oh, I don't feel any misgivings about that, sir," said Horace. "I mean
to build him a house that will be beyond his wildest expectations, and
you see that in a year I shall have earned several thousands, and I need
not say that I will make any settlement you think proper when I
marry----"

"When you are in possession of those thousands," remarked the Professor,
dryly, "it will be time enough to talk of marrying and making
settlements. Meanwhile, if you and Sylvia choose to consider yourselves
engaged, I won't object--only I must insist on having your promise that
you won't persuade her to marry you without her mother's and my
consent."

Ventimore gave this undertaking willingly enough, and they returned to
the drawing-room. Mrs. Futvoye could hardly avoid asking Horace, in his
new character of _fiance_, to stay and dine, which it need not be said
he was only too delighted to do.

"There is one thing, my dear--er--Horace," said the Professor, solemnly,
after dinner, when the neat parlourmaid had left them at dessert, "one
thing on which I think it my duty to caution you. If you are to justify
the confidence we have shown in sanctioning your engagement to Sylvia,
you must curb this propensity of yours to needless extravagance."

"Papa!" cried Sylvia. "What _could_ have made you think Horace
extravagant?"

"Really," said Horace, "I shouldn't have called myself particularly so."

"Nobody ever _does_ call himself particularly extravagant," retorted the
Professor; "but I observed at St. Luc that you habitually gave fifty
centimes as a _pourboire_ when twopence, or even a penny, would have
been handsome. And no one with any regard for the value of money would
have given a guinea for a worthless brass vessel on the bare chance that
it might contain manuscripts, which (as any one could have foreseen) it
did not."

"But it's not a bad sort of bottle, sir," pleaded Horace. "If you
remember, you said yourself the shape was unusual. Why shouldn't it be
worth all the money, and more?"

"To a collector, perhaps," said the Professor, with his wonted
amiability, "which you are not. No, I can only call it a senseless and
reprehensible waste of money."

"Well, the truth is," said Horace, "I bought it with some idea that it
might interest _you_."

"Then you were mistaken, sir. It does _not_ interest me. Why should I be
interested in a metal jar which, for anything that appears to the
contrary, may have been cast the other day at Birmingham?"

"But there _is_ something," said Horace; "a seal or inscription of some
sort engraved on the cap. Didn't I mention it?"

"You said nothing about an inscription before," replied the Professor,
with rather more interest. "What is the character--Arabic? Persian?
Kufic?"

"I really couldn't say--it's almost rubbed out--queer little triangular
marks, something like birds' footprints."

"That sounds like Cuneiform," said the Professor, "which would seem to
point to a Phoenician origin. And, as I am acquainted with no Oriental
brass earlier than the ninth century of our era, I should regard your
description as, _a priori_, distinctly unlikely. However, I should
certainly like to have an opportunity of examining the bottle for myself
some day."

"Whenever you please, Professor. When can you come?"

"Why, I'm so much occupied all day that I can't say for certain when I
can get up to your office again."

"My own days will be fairly full now," said Horace; "and the thing's not
at the office, but in my rooms at Vincent Square. Why shouldn't you all
come and dine quietly there some evening next week, and then you could
examine the inscription comfortably afterwards, you know, Professor, and
find out what it really is? Do say you will." He was eager to have the
privilege of entertaining Sylvia in his own rooms for the first time.

"No, no," said the Professor; "I see no reason why you should be
troubled with the entire family. I may drop in alone some evening and
take the luck of the pot, sir."

"Thank you, papa," put in Sylvia; "but _I_ should like to come too,
please, and hear what you think of Horace's bottle. And I'm dying to see
his rooms. I believe they're fearfully luxurious."

"I trust," observed her father, "that they are far indeed from answering
that description. If they did, I should consider it a most
unsatisfactory indication of Horace's character."

"There's nothing magnificent about them, I assure you," said Horace.
"Though it's true I've had them done up, and all that sort of thing, at
my own expense--but quite simply. I couldn't afford to spend much on
them. But do come and see them. I must have a little dinner, to
celebrate my good fortune--it will be so jolly if you'll all three
come."

"If we do come," stipulated the Professor, "it must be on the distinct
understanding that you don't provide an elaborate banquet. Plain,
simple, wholesome food, well cooked, such as we have had this evening,
is all that is necessary. More would be ostentatious."

"My _dear_ dad!" protested Sylvia, in distress at this somewhat
dictatorial speech. "Surely you can leave all that to Horace!"

"Horace, my dear, understands that, in speaking as I did, I was simply
treating him as a potential member of my family." Here Sylvia made a
private little grimace. "No young man who contemplates marrying should
allow himself to launch into extravagance on the strength of prospects
which, for all he can tell," said the Professor, genially, "may prove
fallacious. On the contrary, if his affection is sincere, he will incur
as little expense as possible, put by every penny he can save, rather
than subject the girl he professes to love to the ordeal of a long
engagement. In other words, the truest lover is the best economist."

"I quite understand, sir," said Horace, good-temperedly; "it would be
foolish of me to attempt any ambitious form of entertainment--especially
as my landlady, though an excellent plain cook, is not exactly a _cordon
bleu_. So you can come to my modest board without misgivings."

Before he left, a provisional date for the dinner was fixed for an
evening towards the end of the next week, and Horace walked home,
treading on air rather than hard paving-stones, and "striking the stars
with his uplifted head."

The next day he went down to Lipsfield and made the acquaintance of the
whole Wackerbath family, who were all enthusiastic about the proposed
country house. The site was everything that the most exacting architect
could desire, and he came back to town the same evening, having spent a
pleasant day and learnt enough of his client's requirements, and--what
was even more important--those of his client's wife and daughters, to
enable him to begin work upon the sketch-plans the next morning.

He had not been long in his rooms at Vincent Square, and was still
agreeably engaged in recalling the docility and ready appreciation with
which the Wackerbaths had received his suggestions and rough sketches,
their compliments and absolute confidence in his skill, when he had a
shock which was as disagreeable as it was certainly unexpected.

For the wall before him parted like a film, and through it stepped,
smiling benignantly, the green-robed figure of Fakrash-el-Aamash, the
Jinnee.




CHAPTER VI

EMBARRAS DE RICHESSES


Ventimore had so thoroughly convinced himself that the released Jinnee
was purely a creature of his own imagination, that he rubbed his eyes
with a start, hoping that they had deceived him.

"Stroke thy head, O merciful and meritorious one," said his visitor,
"and recover thy faculties to receive good tidings. For it is indeed
I--Fakrash-el-Aamash--whom thou beholdest."

"I--I'm delighted to see you," said Horace, as cordially as he could.
"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Nay, for hast thou not done me the greatest of all services by setting
me free? To escape out of a bottle is pleasant. And to thee I owe my
deliverance."

It was all true, then: he had really let an imprisoned Genius or Jinnee,
or whatever it was, out of that bottle! He knew he could not be dreaming
now--he only wished he were. However, since it was done, his best course
seemed to be to put a good face on it, and persuade this uncanny being
somehow to go away and leave him in peace for the future.

"Oh, that's all right, my dear sir," he said, "don't think any more
about it. I--I rather understood you to say that you were starting on a
journey in search of Solomon?"

"I have been, and returned. For I visited sundry cities in his
dominions, hoping that by chance I might hear news of him, but I
refrained from asking directly lest thereby I should engender suspicion,
and so Suleyman should learn of my escape before I could obtain an
audience of him and implore justice."

"Oh, I shouldn't think that was likely," said Horace. "If I were you, I
should go straight back and go on travelling till I _did_ find
Suleyman."

"Well was it said: 'Pass not any door without knocking, lest haply that
which thou seekest should be behind it.'"

"Exactly," said Horace. "Do each city thoroughly, house by house, and
don't neglect the smallest clue. 'If at first you don't succeed, try,
try, try, again!' as one of our own poets teaches."

"'Try, try, try again,'" echoed the Jinnee, with an admiration that was
almost fatuous. "Divinely gifted truly was he who composed such a
verse!"

"He has a great reputation as a sage," said Horace, "and the maxim is
considered one of his happiest efforts. Don't you think that, as the
East is rather thickly populated, the less time you lose in following
the poet's recommendation the better?"

"It may be as thou sayest. But know this, O my son, that wheresoever I
may wander, I shall never cease to study how I may most fitly reward
thee for thy kindness towards me. For nobly it was said: 'If I be
possessed of wealth and be not liberal, may my head never be extended!'"

"My good sir," said Horace, "do please understand that if you were to
offer me any reward for--for a very ordinary act of courtesy, I should
be obliged to decline it."

"But didst thou not say that thou wast sorely in need of a client?"

"That was so at the time," said Horace; "but since I last had the
pleasure of seeing you, I have met with one who is all I could possibly
wish for."

"I am indeed rejoiced to hear it," returned the Jinnee, "for thou
showest me that I have succeeded in performing the first service which
thou hast demanded of me."

Horace staggered under this severe blow to his pride; for the moment he
could only gasp: "You--_you_ sent him to me?"

"I, and no other," said the Jinnee, beaming with satisfaction; "for
while, unseen of men, I was circling in air, resolved to attend to thy
affair before beginning my search for Suleyman (on whom be peace!), it
chanced that I overheard a human being of prosperous appearance say
aloud upon a bridge that he desired to erect for himself a palace if he
could but find an architect. So, perceiving thee afar off seated at an
open casement, I immediately transported him to the place and delivered
him into thy hands."

"But he knew my name--he had my card in his pocket," said Horace.

"I furnished him with the paper containing thy names and abode, lest he
should be ignorant of them."

"Well, look here, Mr. Fakrash," said the unfortunate Horace, "I know you
meant well--but _never_ do a thing like that again! If my
brother-architects came to know of it I should be accused of most
unprofessional behaviour. I'd no idea you would take that way of
introducing a client to me, or I should have stopped it at once!"

"It was an error," said Fakrash. "No matter. I will undo this affair,
and devise some other and better means of serving thee."

"No, no," he said, "for Heaven's sake, leave things alone--you'll only
make them worse. Forgive me, my dear Mr. Fakrash, I'm afraid I must seem
most ungrateful; but--but I was so taken by surprise. And really, I am
extremely obliged to you. For, though the means you took were----were a
little irregular, you have done me a very great service."

"It is naught," said the Jinnee, "compared to those I hope to render so
great a benefactor."

"But, indeed, you mustn't think of trying to do any more for me," urged
Horace, who felt the absolute necessity of expelling any scheme of
further benevolence from the Jinnee's head once and for all. "You have
done enough. Why, thanks to you, I am engaged to build a palace that
will keep me hard at work and happy for ever so long."

"Are human beings, then, so enamoured of hard labour?" asked Fakrash, in
wonder. "It is not thus with the Jinn."

"I love my work for its own sake," said Horace, "and then, when I have
finished it, I shall have earned a very fair amount of money--which is
particularly important to me just now."

"And why, my son, art thou so desirous of obtaining riches?"

"Because," said Horace, "unless a man is tolerably well off in these
days he cannot hope to marry."

Fakrash smiled with indulgent compassion. "How excellent is the saying
of one of old: 'He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who
thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and
one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he _may_ draw forth the eel.' And thou
art comely, and of an age when it is natural to desire the love of a
maiden. Therefore be of good heart and a cheerful eye, and it may be
that, when I am more at leisure, I shall find thee a helpmate who shall
rejoice thy soul."

"Please don't trouble to find me anything of the sort!" said Horace,
hastily, with a mental vision of some helpless and scandalised stranger
being shot into his dwelling like coals. "I assure you I would much
rather win a wife for myself in the ordinary way--as, thanks to your
kindness, I have every hope of doing before long."

"Is there already some damsel for whom thy heart pineth? If so, fear not
to tell me her names and dwelling place, and I will assuredly obtain her
for thee."

But Ventimore had seen enough of the Jinnee's Oriental methods to doubt
his tact and discretion where Sylvia was concerned. "No, no; of course
not. I spoke generally," he said. "It's exceedingly kind of you--but I
_do_ wish I could make you understand that I am overpaid as it is. You
have put me in the way to make a name and fortune for myself. If I fail,
it will be my own fault. And, at all events, I want nothing more from
you. If you mean to find Suleyman (on whom be peace!) you must go and
live in the East altogether--for he certainly isn't over here; you must
give up your whole time to it, keep as quiet as possible, and don't be
discouraged by any reports you may hear. Above all, never trouble your
head about me or my affairs again!"

"O thou of wisdom and eloquence," said Fakrash, "this is most excellent
advice. I will go, then; but may I drink the cup of perdition if I
become unmindful of thy benevolence!"

And, raising his joined hands above his head as he spoke, he sank, feet
foremost, through the carpet and was gone.

"Thank Heaven," thought Ventimore, "he's taken the hint at last. I don't
think I'm likely to see any more of him. I feel an ungrateful brute for
saying so, but I can't help it. I can _not_ stand being under any
obligation to a Jinnee who's been shut up in a beastly brass bottle ever
since the days of Solomon, who probably had very good reasons for
putting him there."

Horace next asked himself whether he was bound in honour to disclose the
facts to Mr. Wackerbath, and give him the opportunity of withdrawing
from the agreement if he thought fit.

On the whole, he saw no necessity for telling him anything; the only
possible result would be to make his client suspect his sanity; and who
would care to employ an insane architect? Then, if he retired from the
undertaking without any explanations, what could he say to Sylvia? What
would Sylvia's father say to _him_? There would certainly be an end to
his engagement.

After all, he had not been to blame; the Wackerbaths were quite
satisfied. He felt perfectly sure that he could justify their selection
of him; he would wrong nobody by accepting the commission, while he
would only offend them, injure himself irretrievably, and lose all hope
of gaining Sylvia if he made any attempt to undeceive them.

And Fakrash was gone, never to return. So, on all these considerations,
Horace decided that silence was his only possible policy, and, though
some moralists may condemn his conduct as disingenuous and wanting in
true moral courage, I venture to doubt whether any reader, however
independent, straightforward, and indifferent to notoriety and ridicule,
would have behaved otherwise in Ventimore's extremely delicate and
difficult position.

Some days passed, every working hour of which was spent by Horace in the
rapture of creation. To every man with the soul of an artist in him
there comes at times--only too seldom in most cases--a revelation of
latent power that he had not dared to hope for. And now with Ventimore
years of study and theorising which he had often been tempted to think
wasted began to bear golden fruit. He designed and drew with a rapidity
and originality, a sense of perfect mastery of the various problems to
be dealt with, and a delight in the working out of mass and detail, so
intoxicating that he almost dreaded lest he should be the victim of some
self-delusion.

His evenings were of course spent with the Futvoyes, in discovering
Sylvia in some new and yet more adorable aspect. Altogether, he was very
much in love, very happy, and very busy--three states not invariably
found in combination.

And, as he had foreseen, he had effectually got rid of Fakrash, who was
evidently too engrossed in the pursuit of Solomon to think of anything
else. And there seemed no reason why he should abandon his search for a
generation or two, for it would probably take all that time to convince
him that that mighty monarch was no longer on the throne.

"It would have been too brutal to tell him myself," thought Horace,
"when he was so keen on having his case reheard. And it gives him an
object, poor old buffer, and keeps him from interfering in my affairs,
so it's best for both of us."

Horace's little dinner-party had been twice postponed, till he had begun
to have a superstitious fear that it would never come off; but at length
the Professor had been induced to give an absolute promise for a certain
evening.

On the day before, after breakfast, Horace had summoned his landlady to
a consultation on the _menu_. "Nothing elaborate, you know, Mrs.
Rapkin," said Horace, who, though he would have liked to provide a feast
of all procurable delicacies for Sylvia's refection, was obliged to
respect her father's prejudices. "Just a simple dinner, thoroughly well
cooked, and nicely served--as you know so well how to do it."

"I suppose, sir, you would require Rapkin to wait?"

As the ex-butler was liable to trances on these occasions during which
he could do nothing but smile and bow with speechless politeness as he
dropped sauce-boats and plates, Horace replied that he thought of having
someone in to avoid troubling Mr. Rapkin; but his wife expressed such
confidence in her husband's proving equal to all emergencies, that
Ventimore waived the point, and left it to her to hire extra help if she
thought fit.

"Now, what soup can you give us?" he inquired, as Mrs. Rapkin stood at
attention and quite unmollified.

After protracted mental conflict, she grudgingly suggested gravy
soup--which Horace thought too unenterprising, and rejected in favour of
mock turtle. "Well then, fish?" he continued; "how about fish?"

Mrs. Rapkin dragged the depths of her culinary resources for several
seconds, and finally brought to the surface what she called "a nice
fried sole." Horace would not hear of it, and urged her to aspire to
salmon; she substituted smelts, which he opposed by a happy inspiration
of turbot and lobster sauce. The sauce, however, presented insuperable
difficulties to her mind, and she offered a compromise in the form of
cod--which he finally accepted as a fish which the Professor could
hardly censure for ostentation.

Next came the no less difficult questions of _entree_ or no _entree_, of
joint and bird. "What's in season just now?" said Horace; "let me
see"--and glanced out of the window as he spoke, as though in search of
some outside suggestion.... "Camels, by Jove!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"_Camels_, Mr. Ventimore, sir?" repeated Mrs. Rapkin, in some
bewilderment; and then, remembering that he was given to untimely
flippancy, she gave a tolerant little cough.

"I'll be shot if they _aren't_ camels!" said Horace. "What do _you_ make
of 'em, Mrs. Rapkin?"

Out of the faint mist which hung over the farther end of the square
advanced a procession of tall, dust-coloured animals, with long,
delicately poised necks and a mincing gait. Even Mrs. Rapkin could not
succeed in making anything of them except camels.

"What the deuce does a caravan of camels want in Vincent Square?" said
Horace, with a sudden qualm for which he could not account.

"Most likely they belong to the Barnum Show, sir," suggested his
landlady. "I did hear they were coming to Olympia again this year."

"Why, of course," cried Horace, intensely relieved. "It's on their way
from the Docks--at least, it isn't _out_ of their way. Or probably the
main road's up for repairs. That's it--they'll turn off to the left at
the corner. See, they've got Arab drivers with them. Wonderful how the
fellows manage them."

"It seems to me, sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, "that they're coming _our_
way--they seem to be stopping outside."

"Don't talk such infernal---- I beg your pardon, Mrs. Rapkin; but why
on earth should Barnum and Bailey's camels come out of their way to call
on _me_? It's ridiculous, you know!" said Horace, irritably.

"Ridicklous it _may_ be, sir," she retorted, "but they're all layin'
down on the road opposite our door, as you can see--and them niggers is
making signs to you to come out and speak to 'em."

It was true enough. One by one the camels, which were apparently of the
purest breed, folded themselves up in a row like campstools at a sign
from their attendants, who were now making profound salaams towards the
window where Ventimore was standing.

"I suppose I'd better go down and see what they want," he said, with
rather a sickly smile. "They may have lost the way to Olympia.... I only
hope Fakrash isn't at the bottom of this," he thought, as he went
downstairs. "But he'd come himself--at all events, he wouldn't send me a
message on such a lot of camels!" As he appeared on the doorstep, all
the drivers flopped down and rubbed their flat, black noses on the
curbstone.

"For Heaven's sake get up!" said Horace angrily. "This isn't
Hammersmith. Turn to the left, into the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and ask a
policeman the nearest way to Olympia."

"Be not angry with thy slaves!" said the head driver, in excellent
English. "We are here by command of Fakrash-el-Aamash, our lord, whom we
are bound to obey. And we have brought thee these as gifts."

"My compliments to your master," said Horace, between his teeth, "and
tell him that a London architect has no sort of occasion for camels. Say
that I am extremely obliged--but am compelled to decline them."

"O highly born one," explained the driver, "the camels are not a
gift--but the loads which are upon the camels. Suffer us, therefore,
since we dare not disobey our lord's commands, to carry these trifling
tokens of his good will into thy dwelling and depart in peace."

Horace had not noticed till then that every camel bore a heavy burden,
which the attendants were now unloading. "Oh, if you _must_!" he said,
not too graciously; "only do look sharp about it--there's a crowd
collecting already, and I don't want to have a constable here."

He returned to his rooms, where he found Mrs. Rapkin paralysed with
amazement. "It's--it's all right," he said; "I'd forgotten--it's only a
few Oriental things from the place where that brass bottle came from,
you know. They've left them here--on approval."

"Seems funny their sending their goods 'ome on camels, sir, doesn't it?"
said Mrs. Rapkin.

"Not at all funny!" said Horace; "they--they're an enterprising
firm--their way of advertising."

One after another, a train of dusky attendants entered, each of whom
deposited his load on the floor with a guttural grunt and returned
backward, until the sitting-room was blocked with piles of sacks, and
bales, and chests, whereupon the head driver appeared and intimated that
the tale of gifts was complete.

"I wonder what sort of tip this fellow expects," thought Horace; "a
sovereign seems shabby--but it's all I can run to. I'll try him with
that."

But the overseer repudiated all idea of a gratuity with stately dignity,
and as Horace saw him to the gate, he found a stolid constable by the
railings.

"This won't _do_, you know," said the constable; "these 'ere camels must
move on--or I shall 'ave to interfere."

"It's all right, constable," said Horace, pressing into his hand the
sovereign the head driver had rejected; "they're going to move on now.
They've brought me a few presents from--from a friend of mine in the
East."

By this time the attendants had mounted the kneeling camels, which rose
with them, and swung off round the square in a long, swaying trot that
soon left the crowd far behind, staring blankly after the caravan as
camel after camel disappeared into the haze.

"I shouldn't mind knowin' that friend o' yours, sir," said the
constable; "open-hearted sort o' gentleman, I should think?"

"Very!" said Horace, savagely, and returned to his room, which Mrs.
Rapkin had now left.

His hands shook, though not with joy, as he untied some of the sacks and
bales and forced open the outlandish-looking chests, the contents of
which almost took away his breath.

For in the bales were carpets and tissues which he saw at a glance must
be of fabulous antiquity and beyond all price; the sacks held golden
ewers and vessels of strange workmanship and pantomimic proportions; the
chests were full of jewels--ropes of creamy-pink pearls as large as
average onions, strings of uncut rubies and emeralds, the smallest of
which would have been a tight fit in an ordinary collar-box, and
diamonds, roughly facetted and polished, each the size of a coconut, in
whose hearts quivered a liquid and prismatic radiance.

On the most moderate computation, the total value of these gifts could
hardly be less than several hundred millions; never probably in the
world's history had any treasury contained so rich a store.

It would have been difficult for anybody, on suddenly finding himself
the possessor of this immense incalculable wealth, to make any comment
quite worthy of the situation, but, surely, none could have been more
inadequate and indeed inappropriate than Horace's--which, heartfelt as
it was, was couched in the simple monosyllable--"Damn!"




CHAPTER VII

"GRATITUDE--A LIVELY SENSE OF FAVOURS TO COME"


Most men on suddenly finding themselves in possession of such enormous
wealth would have felt some elation. Ventimore, as we have seen, was
merely exasperated. And, although this attitude of his may strike the
reader as incomprehensible or absolutely wrong-headed, he had more
reason on his side than might appear at a first view.

It was undoubtedly the fact that, with the money these treasures
represented, he would be in a position to convulse the money markets of
Europe and America, bring society to his feet, make and unmake
kingdoms--dominate, in short, the entire world.

"But, then," as Horace told himself with a groan, "it wouldn't amuse me
in the least to convulse money markets. Do I want to see the smartest
people in London grovelling for anything they think they're likely to
get out of me? As I should be perfectly well aware that their homage was
not paid to any personal merit of mine, I could hardly consider it
flattering. And why should I make kingdoms? The only thing I understand
and care about is making houses. Then, am I likely to be a better hand
at dominating the world than all the others who have tried the
experiment? I doubt it."

He called to mind all the millionaires he had ever read or heard of;
they didn't seem to get much fun out of their riches. The majority of
them were martyrs to dyspepsia. They were often weighed down by the
cares and responsibilities of their position; the only people who were
unable to obtain an audience of them at any time were their friends;
they lived in a glare of publicity, and every post brought them
hundreds of begging letters, and a few threats; their children were in
constant danger from kidnappers, and they themselves, after knowing no
rest in life, could not be certain that even their tombs would be
undisturbed. Whether they were extravagant or thrifty, they were equally
maligned, and, whatever the fortune they left behind them, they could be
absolutely certain that, in a couple of generations, it would be
entirely dissipated.

"And the biggest millionaire living," concluded Horace, "is a pauper
compared with me!"

But there was another consideration--how was he to realise all this
wealth? He knew enough about precious stones to be aware that a ruby,
for instance, of the true "pigeon's blood" colour and the size of a
melon, as most of these rubies were, would be worth, even when cut,
considerably over a million; but who would buy it?

"I think I see myself," he reflected grimly, "calling on some diamond
merchant in Hatton Garden with half a dozen assorted jewels in a
Gladstone bag. If he believed they were genuine, he'd probably have a
fit; but most likely he'd think I'd invented some dodge for
manufacturing them, and had been fool enough to overdo the size. Anyhow,
he'd want to know how they came into my possession, and what could I
say? That they were part of a little present made to me by a Jinnee in
grateful acknowledgment of my having relieved him from a brass bottle in
which he'd been shut up for nearly three thousand years? Look at it how
you will, it's _not_ convincing. I fancy I can guess what he'd say. And
what an ass I should look! Then suppose the thing got into the papers?"

Got into the papers? Why, of course it would get into the papers. As if
it were possible in these days for a young and hitherto unemployed
architect suddenly to surround himself with wondrous carpets, and gold
vessels, and gigantic jewels without attracting the notice of some
enterprising journalist. He would be interviewed; the story of his
curiously acquired riches would go the round of the papers; he would
find himself the object of incredulity, suspicion, ridicule. In
imagination he could already see the headlines on the news-sheets:


            BOTTLED BILLIONS

    AMAZING ARABESQUES BY AN ARCHITECT

    HE SAYS THE JAR CONTAINED A JINNEE

            SENSATIONAL STORY

            DIVERTING DETAILS


And so on, through every phrase of alliterative ingenuity. He ground his
teeth at the mere thought of it. Then Sylvia would come to hear of it,
and what would _she_ think? She would naturally be repelled, as any
nice-minded girl would be, by the idea that her lover was in secret
alliance with a supernatural being. And her father and mother--would
they allow her to marry a man, however rich, whose wealth came from such
a questionable source? No one would believe that he had not made some
unholy bargain before consenting to set this incarcerated spirit
free--he, who had acted in absolute ignorance, who had persistently
declined all reward after realising what he had done!

No, it was too much. Try as he might to do justice to the Jinnee's
gratitude and generosity, he could not restrain a bitter resentment at
the utter want of consideration shown in overloading him with gifts so
useless and so compromising. No Jinnee--however old, however unfamiliar
with the world as it is now--had any right to be such a fool!

And at this, above the ramparts of sacks and bales, which occupied all
the available space in the room, appeared Mrs. Rapkin's face.

"I was going to ask you, sir, before them parcels came," she began,
with a dry cough of disapproval, "what you would like in the way of
ongtray to-morrow night. I thought if I could find a sweetbread at all
reasonable----"

To Horace--surrounded as he was by incalculable riches--sweetbreads
seemed incongruous just then; the transition of thought was too violent.

"I can't bother about that now, Mrs. Rapkin," he said; "we'll settle it
to-morrow. I'm too busy."

"I suppose most of these things will have to go back, sir, if they're
only sent on approval like?"

If he only knew where and how he could send them back! "I--I'm not
sure," he said; "I may have to keep them."

"Well, sir, bargain or none, I wouldn't have 'em as a gift myself, being
so dirty and fusty; they can't be no use to anybody, not to mention
there being no room to move with them blocking up all the place. I'd
better tell Rapkin to carry 'em all upstairs out of people's way."

"Certainly not," said Horace, sharply, by no means anxious for the
Rapkins to discover the real nature of his treasures. "Don't touch them,
either of you. Leave them exactly as they are, do you understand?"

"As you please, Mr. Ventimore, sir; only, if they're not to be
interfered with, I don't see myself how you're going to set your friends
down to dinner to-morrow, that's all."

And, indeed, considering that the table and every available chair, and
even the floor, were heaped so high with valuables that Horace himself
could only just squeeze his way between the piles, it seemed as if his
guests might find themselves inconveniently cramped.

"It will be all right," he said, with an optimism he was very far from
feeling; "we'll manage somehow--leave it to me."

Before he left for his office he took the precaution to baffle any
inquisitiveness on the part of his landlady by locking his sitting-room
door and carrying away the key, but it was in a very different mood from
his former light-hearted confidence that he sat down to his
drawing-board in Great Cloister Street that morning. He could not
concentrate his mind; his enthusiasm and his ideas had alike deserted
him.

He flung down the dividers he had been using and pushed away the nest of
saucers of Indian ink and colours in a fit of petulance. "It's no good,"
he exclaimed aloud; "I feel a perfect duffer this morning. I couldn't
even design a decent dog-kennel!"

Even as he spoke he became conscious of a presence in the room, and,
looking round, saw Fakrash the Jinnee standing at his elbow, smiling
down on him more benevolently than ever, and with a serene expectation
of being warmly welcomed and thanked, which made Horace rather ashamed
of his own inability to meet it.

"He's a thoroughly good-natured old chap," he thought,
self-reproachfully. "He means well, and I'm a beast not to feel more
glad to see him. And yet, hang it all! I can't have him popping in and
out of the office like a rabbit whenever the fancy takes him!"

"Peace be upon thee," said Fakrash. "Moderate the trouble of thy heart,
and impart thy difficulties to me."

"Oh, they're nothing, thanks," said Horace, feeling decidedly
embarrassed. "I got stuck over my work for the moment, and it worried me
a little--that's all."

"Then thou hast not yet received the gifts which I commanded should be
delivered at thy dwelling-place?"

"Oh, indeed I have!" replied Horace; "and--and I really don't know how
to thank you for them."

"A few trifling presents," answered the Jinnee, "and by no means suited
to thy dignity--yet the best in my power to bestow upon thee for the
time being."

"My dear sir, they simply overwhelm me with their magnificence! They're
beyond all price, and--and I've no idea what to do with such a
superabundance."

"A superfluity of good things is good," was the Jinnee's sententious
reply.

"Not in my particular case. I--I quite feel your goodness and
generosity; but, indeed, as I told you before, it's really impossible
for me to accept any such reward."

Fakrash's brows contracted slightly. "How sayest thou that it is
impossible--seeing that these things are already in thy possession?"

"I know," said Horace; "but--you won't be offended if I speak quite
plainly?"

"Art thou not even as a son to me, and can I be angered at any words of
thine?"

"Well," said Horace, with sudden hope, "honestly, then, I would very
much rather--if you're sure you don't mind--that you would take them all
back again."

"What? Dost thou demand that I, Fakrash-el-Aamash, should consent to
receive back the gifts I have bestowed? Are they, then, of so little
value in thy sight?"

"They're of too much value. If I took such a reward for--for a very
ordinary service, I should never be able to respect myself again."

"This is not the reasoning of an intelligent person," said the Jinnee,
coldly.

"If you think me a fool, I can't help it. I'm not an ungrateful fool, at
all events. But I feel very strongly that I can't keep these gifts of
yours."

"So thou wouldst have me break the oath which I swore to reward thee
fitly for thy kind action?"

"But you _have_ rewarded me already," said Horace, "by contriving that a
wealthy merchant should engage me to build him a residence. And--forgive
my plain speaking--if you truly desire my happiness (as I am sure you
do) you will relieve me of all these precious gems and merchandise,
because, to be frank, they will _not_ make me happy. On the contrary,
they are making me extremely uncomfortable."

"In the days of old," said Fakrash, "all men pursued wealth; nor could
any amass enough to satisfy his desires. Have riches, then, become so
contemptible in mortal eyes that thou findest them but an encumbrance?
Explain the matter."

Horace felt a natural delicacy in giving his real reasons. "I can't
answer for other men," he said. "All I know is that I've never been
accustomed to being rich, and I'd rather get used to it gradually, and
be able to feel that I owed it, as far as possible, to my own exertions.
For, as I needn't tell _you_, Mr. Fakrash, riches alone don't make any
fellow happy. You must have observed that they're apt to--well, to land
him in all kinds of messes and worries.... I'm talking like a confounded
copybook," he thought, "but I don't care how priggish I am if I can only
get my way!"

Fakrash was deeply impressed. "O young man of marvellous moderation!" he
cried. "Thy sentiments are not inferior to those of the Great Suleyman
himself (on whom be peace!). Yet even he doth not utterly despise them,
for he hath gold and ivory and precious stones in abundance. Nor
hitherto have I ever met a human being capable of rejecting them when
offered. But, since thou seemest sincere in holding that my poor and
paltry gifts will not advance thy welfare, and since I would do thee
good and not evil--be it even as thou wouldst. For excellently was it
said: 'The worth of a present depends not on itself, nor on the giver,
but on the receiver alone.'"

Horace could hardly believe that he had really prevailed. "It's
extremely good of you, sir," he said, "to take it so well. And if you
_could_ let that caravan call for them as soon as possible, it would be
a great convenience to me. I mean--er--the fact is, I'm expecting a few
friends to dine with me to-morrow, and, as my rooms are rather small at
the best of times, I don't quite know how I can manage to entertain
them at all unless something is done."

"It will be the easiest of actions," replied Fakrash; "therefore, have
no fear that, when the time cometh, thou wilt not be able to entertain
thy friends in a fitting manner. And for the caravan, it shall set out
without delay."

"By Jove, though, I'd forgotten one thing," said Horace: "I've locked up
the room where your presents are--they won't be able to get in without
the key."

"Against the servants of the Jinn neither bolts nor bars can prevail.
They shall enter therein and remove all that they brought thee, since it
is thy desire."

"Very many thanks," said Horace. "And you do _really_ understand that
I'm every bit as grateful as if I could keep the things? You see, I want
all my time and all my energies to complete the designs for this
building, which," he added gracefully, "I should never be in a position
to do at all, but for your assistance."

"On my arrival," said Fakrash, "I heard thee lamenting the difficulties
of the task; wherein do they consist?"

"Oh," said Horace, "it's a little difficult to please all the different
people concerned, and myself too. I want to make something of it that I
shall be proud of, and that will give me a reputation. It's a large
house, and there will be a good deal of work in it; but I shall manage
it all right."

"This is a great undertaking indeed," remarked the Jinnee, after he had
asked various by no means unintelligent questions and received the
answers. "But be persuaded that it shall all turn out most fortunately
and thou shalt obtain great renown. And now," he concluded, "I am
compelled to take leave of thee, for I am still without any certain
tidings of Suleyman."

"You mustn't let me keep you," said Horace, who had been on thorns for
some minutes lest Beevor should return and find him with his mysterious
visitor. "You see," he added instructively, "so long as you _will_
neglect your own much more important affairs to look after mine, you can
hardly expect to make _much_ progress, can you?"

"How excellent is the saying," replied the Jinnee: "'The time which is
spent in doing kindnesses, call it not wasted.'"

"Yes, that's very good," said Horace, feeling driven to silence this
maxim, if possible, with one of his own invention. "But _we_ have a
saying too--how does it go? Ah, I remember. 'It is possible for a
kindness to be more inconvenient than an injury.'"

"Marvellously gifted was he who discovered such a saying!" cried
Fakrash.

"I imagine," said Horace, "he learnt it from his own experience. By the
way, what place were you thinking of drawing--I mean trying--next for
Suleyman?"

"I purpose to repair to Nineveh, and inquire there."

"Capital," said Ventimore, with hearty approval, for he hoped that this
would take the Jinnee some little time. "Wonderful city, Nineveh, from
all I've heard--though not quite what it used to be, perhaps. Then
there's Babylon--you might go on there. And if you shouldn't hear of him
there, why not strike down into Central Africa, and do that thoroughly?
Or South America; it's a pity to lose any chance--you've never been to
South America yet?"

"I have not so much as heard of such a country, and how should Suleyman
be there?"

"Pardon me, I didn't say he _was_ there. All I meant to convey was, that
he's quite as likely to be there as anywhere else. But if you're going
to Nineveh first, you'd better lose no more time, for I've always
understood that it's rather an awkward place to get at--though probably
_you_ won't find it very difficult."

"I care not," said Fakrash, "though the search be long, for in travel
there are five advantages----"

"I know," interrupted Horace, "so don't stop to describe them now. I
should like to see you fairly started, and you really mustn't think it
necessary to break off your search again on my account, because, thanks
to you, I shall get on splendidly alone for the future--if you'll kindly
see that that merchandise is removed."

"Thine abode shall not be encumbered with it for another hour," said the
Jinnee. "O thou judicious one, in whose estimation wealth is of no
value, know that I have never encountered a mortal who pleased me as
thou hast; and moreover, be assured that such magnanimity as thine shall
not go without a recompense!"

"How often must I tell you," said Horace, in a glow of impatience, "that
I am already much more than recompensed? Now, my kind, generous old
friend," he added, with an emotion that was not wholly insincere, "the
time has come to bid you farewell--for ever. Let me picture you as
revisiting your former haunts, penetrating to quarters of the globe
(for, whether you are aware of it or not, this earth of ours _is_ a
globe) hitherto unknown to you, refreshing your mind by foreign travel
and the study of mankind--but never, never for a moment losing sight of
your main object, the eventual discovery of and reconciliation with
Suleyman (on whom be peace!). That is the greatest, the only happiness
you can give me now. Good-bye, and _bon voyage_!"

"May Allah never deprive thy friends of thy presence!" returned the
Jinnee, who was apparently touched by this exordium, "for truly thou art
a most excellent young man!"

And stepping back into the fireplace, he was gone in an instant.

Ventimore sank back in his chair with a sigh of relief. He had begun to
fear that the Jinnee never would take himself off, but he had gone at
last--and for good.

He was half ashamed of himself for feeling so glad, for Fakrash was a
good-natured old thing enough in his way. Only he _would_ overdo things:
he had no sense of proportion. "Why," thought Horace, "if a fellow
expressed a modest wish for a canary in a cage he's just the sort of old
Jinnee to bring him a whole covey of rocs in an aviary about ten times
the size of the Crystal Palace. However, he _does_ understand now that I
can't take anything more from him, and he isn't offended either, so
_that's_ all settled. Now I can set to work and knock off these plans in
peace and quietness."

But he had not done much before he heard sounds in the next room which
told him that Beevor had returned at last. He had been expected back
from the country for the last day or two, and it was fortunate that he
had delayed so long, thought Ventimore, as he went in to see him and to
tell him the unexpected piece of good fortune that he himself had met
with since they last met. It is needless to say that, in giving his
account, he abstained from any mention of the brass bottle or the
Jinnee, as unessential elements in his story.

Beevor's congratulations were quite as cordial as could be expected, as
soon as he fully understood that no hoax was intended. "Well, old man,"
he said, "I _am_ glad. I really am, you know. To think of a prize like
that coming to you the very first time! And you don't even know how this
Mr. Wackerbath came to hear of you--just happened to see your name up
outside and came in, I expect. Why, I dare say, if I hadn't chanced to
go away as I did--and about a couple of paltry two thousand pound
houses, too! Ah, well, I don't grudge you your luck, though it _does_
seem rather---- It was worth waiting for; you'll be cutting _me_ out
before long--if you don't make a mess of this job. I mean, you know, old
chap, if you don't go and give your City man a Gothic castle when what
he wants is something with plenty of plate-glass windows and a
Corinthian portico. That's the rock I see ahead of _you_. You mustn't
mind my giving you a word of warning!"

"Oh no," said Ventimore; "but I shan't give him either a Gothic castle
or plenty of plate-glass. I venture to think he'll be pleased with the
general idea as I'm working it out."

"Let's hope so," said Beevor. "If you get into any difficulty, you
know," he added, with a touch of patronage, "just you come to me."

"Thanks," said Horace, "I will. But I'm getting on very fairly at
present."

"I should rather like to see what you've made of it. I might be able to
give you a wrinkle here and there."

"It's awfully good of you, but I think I'd rather you didn't see the
plans till they're quite finished," said Horace. The truth was that he
was perfectly aware that the other would not be in sympathy with his
ideas; and Horace, who had just been suffering from a cold fit of
depression about his work, rather shrank from any kind of criticism.

"Oh, just as you please!" said Beevor, a little stiffly; "you always
_were_ an obstinate beggar. I've had a certain amount of experience, you
know, in my poor little pottering way, and I thought I might possibly
have saved you a cropper or two. But if you think you can manage better
alone--only don't get bolted with by one of those architectural hobbies
of yours, that's all."

"All right, old fellow. I'll ride my hobby on the curb," said Horace,
laughing, as he went back to his own office, where he found that all his
former certainty and enjoyment of his work had returned to him, and by
the end of the day he had made so much progress that his designs needed
only a few finishing touches to be complete enough for his client's
inspection.

Better still, on returning to his rooms that evening to change before
going to Kensington, he found that the admirable Fakrash had kept his
promise--every chest, sack, and bale had been cleared away.

"Them camels come back for the things this afternoon, sir," said Mrs.
Rapkin, "and it put me in a fluster at first, for I made sure you'd
locked your door and took the key. But I must have been
mistook--leastways, them Arabs got in somehow. I hope you meant
everything to go back?"

"Quite," said Horace; "I saw the--the person who sent them this morning,
and told him there was nothing I cared for enough to keep."

"And like his impidence sending you a lot o' rubbish like that on
approval--and on camels, too!" declared Mrs. Rapkin. "I'm sure I don't
know what them advertising firms will try next--pushing, _I_ call it."

Now that everything was gone, Horace felt a little natural regret and
doubt whether he need have been quite so uncompromising in his refusal
of the treasures. "I might have kept some of those tissues and things
for Sylvia," he thought; "and she loves pearls. And a prayer-carpet
would have pleased the Professor tremendously. But no, after all, it
wouldn't have done. Sylvia couldn't go about in pearls the size of new
potatoes, and the Professor would only have ragged me for more reckless
extravagance. Besides, if I'd taken any of the Jinnee's gifts, he might
keep on pouring more in, till I should be just where I was before--or
worse off, really, because I couldn't decently refuse them, then. So
it's best as it is."

And really, considering his temperament and the peculiar nature of his
position, it is not easy to see how he could have arrived at any other
conclusion.




CHAPTER VIII

BACHELOR'S QUARTERS


Horace was feeling particularly happy as he walked back the next evening
to Vincent Square. He had the consciousness of having done a good day's
work, for the sketch-plans for Mr. Wackerbath's mansion were actually
completed and despatched to his business address, while Ventimore now
felt a comfortable assurance that his designs would more than satisfy
his client.

But it was not that which made him so light of heart. That night his
rooms were to be honoured for the first time by Sylvia's presence. She
would tread upon his carpet, sit in his chairs, comment upon, and
perhaps even handle, his books and ornaments--and all of them would
retain something of her charm for ever after. If she only came! For even
now he could not quite believe that she really would; that some untoward
event would not make a point of happening to prevent her, as he
sometimes doubted whether his engagement was not too sweet and wonderful
to be true--or, at all events, to last.

As to the dinner, his mind was tolerably easy, for he had settled the
remaining details of the _menu_ with his landlady that morning, and he
could hope that without being so sumptuous as to excite the Professor's
wrath, it would still be not altogether unworthy--and what goods could
be rare and dainty enough?--to be set before Sylvia.

He would have liked to provide champagne, but he knew that wine would
savour of ostentation in the Professor's judgment, so he had contented
himself instead with claret, a sound vintage which he knew he could
depend upon. Flowers, he thought, were clearly permissible, and he had
called at a florist's on his way and got some chrysanthemums of palest
yellow and deepest terra-cotta, the finest he could see. Some of them
would look well on the centre of the table in an old Nankin
blue-and-white bowl he had; the rest he could arrange about the room:
there would just be time to see to all that before dressing.

Occupied with these thoughts, he turned into Vincent Square, which
looked vaster than ever with the murky haze, enclosed by its high
railings, and under a wide expanse of steel-blue sky, across which the
clouds were driving fast like ships in full sail scudding for harbour
before a storm. Against the mist below, the young and nearly leafless
trees showed flat, black profiles as of pressed seaweed, and the sky
immediately above the house-tops was tinged with a sullen red from miles
of lighted streets; from the river came the long-drawn tooting of tugs,
mingled with the more distant wail and hysterical shrieks of railway
engines on the Lambeth lines.

And now he reached the old semi-detached house in which he lodged, and
noticed for the first time how the trellis-work of the veranda made,
with the bared creepers and hanging baskets, a kind of decorative
pattern against the windows, which were suffused with a roseate glow
that looked warm and comfortable and hospitable. He wondered whether
Sylvia would notice it when she arrived.

He passed under the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp,
and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick
porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood
spellbound with perplexed amazement,--for he was in a strange house.

In place of the modest passage with the yellow marble wall-paper, the
mahogany hat-stand, and the elderly barometer in a state of chronic
depression which he knew so well, he found an arched octagonal
entrance-hall with arabesques of blue, crimson, and gold, and
richly-embroidered hangings; the floor was marble, and from a shallow
basin of alabaster in the centre a perfumed fountain rose and fell with
a lulling patter.

"I must have mistaken the number," he thought, quite forgetting that his
latch-key had fitted, and he was just about to retreat before his
intrusion was discovered, when the hangings parted, and Mrs. Rapkin
presented herself, making so deplorably incongruous a figure in such
surroundings, and looking so bewildered and woebegone, that Horace, in
spite of his own increasing uneasiness, had some difficulty in keeping
his gravity.

"Oh, Mr. Ventimore, sir," she lamented; "whatever _will_ you go and do
next, I wonder? To think of your going and having the whole place done
up and altered out of knowledge like this, without a word of warning! If
any halterations were required, I _do_ think as me and Rapkin had the
right to be consulted."

Horace let all his chrysanthemums drop unheeded into the fountain. He
understood now: indeed, he seemed in some way to have understood almost
from the first, only he would not admit it even to himself.

The irrepressible Jinnee was at the bottom of this, of course. He
remembered now having made that unfortunate remark the day before about
the limited accommodation his rooms afforded.

Clearly Fakrash must have taken a mental note of it, and, with that
insatiable munificence which was one of his worst failings, had
determined, by way of a pleasant surprise, to entirely refurnish and
redecorate the apartments according to his own ideas.

It was extremely kind of him; it showed a truly grateful
disposition--"but, oh!" as Horace thought, in the bitterness of his
soul, "if he would only learn to let well alone and mind his own
business!"

However, the thing was done now, and he must accept the responsibility
for it, since he could hardly disclose the truth. "Didn't I mention I
was having some alterations made?" he said carelessly. "They've got the
work done rather sooner than I expected. Were--were they long over it?"

"I'm sure I can't tell you, sir, having stepped out to get some things I
wanted in for to-night; and Rapkin, he was round the corner at his
reading-room; and when I come back it was all done and the workmen gone
'ome; and how they could have finished such a job in the time beats me
altogether, for when we 'ad the men in to do the back kitchen they took
ten days over it."

"Well," said Horace, evading this point, "however they've done this,
they've done it remarkably well--you'll admit that, Mrs. Rapkin?"

"That's as may be sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, with a sniff, "but it ain't
_my_ taste, nor yet I don't think it will be Rapkin's taste when he
comes to see it."

It was not Ventimore's taste either, though he was not going to confess
it. "Sorry for that, Mrs. Rapkin," he said, "but I've no time to talk
about it now. I must rush upstairs and dress."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but that's a total unpossibility--for they've
been and took away the staircase.'

"Taken away the staircase? Nonsense!" cried Horace.

"So _I_ think, Mr. Ventimore--but it's what them men have done, and if
you don't believe me, come and see for yourself!"

She drew the hangings aside, and revealed to Ventimore's astonished gaze
a vast pillared hall with a lofty domed roof, from which hung several
lamps, diffusing a subdued radiance. High up in the wall, on his left,
were the two windows which he judged to have formerly belonged to his
sitting-room (for either from delicacy or inability, or simply because
it had not occurred to him, the Jinnee had not interfered with the
external structure), but the windows were now masked by a perforated
and gilded lattice, which accounted for the pattern Horace had noticed
from without. The walls were covered with blue-and-white Oriental tiles,
and a raised platform of alabaster on which were divans ran round two
sides of the hall, while the side opposite to him was pierced with
horseshoe-shaped arches, apparently leading to other apartments. The
centre of the marble floor was spread with costly rugs and piles of
cushions, their rich hues glowing through the gold with which they were
intricately embroidered.

"Well," said the unhappy Horace, scarcely knowing what he was saying,
"it--it all looks very _cosy_, Mrs. Rapkin."

"It's not for me to say, sir; but I should like to know where you
thought of dining?"

"Where?" said Horace. "Why, here, of course. There's plenty of room."

"There isn't a table left in the house," said Mrs. Rapkin; "so, unless
you'd wish the cloth laid on the floor----"

"Oh, there must be a table somewhere," said Horace, impatiently, "or you
can borrow one. Don't _make_ difficulties, Mrs. Rapkin. Rig up anything
you like.... Now I must be off and dress."

He got rid of her, and, on entering one of the archways, discovered a
smaller room, in cedar-wood encrusted with ivory and mother-o'-pearl,
which was evidently his bedroom. A gorgeous robe, stiff with gold and
glittering with ancient gems, was laid out for him--for the Jinnee had
thought of everything--but Ventimore, naturally, preferred his own
evening clothes.

"Mr. Rapkin!" he shouted, going to another arch that seemed to
communicate with the basement.

"Sir?" replied his landlord, who had just returned from his
"reading-room," and now appeared, without a tie and in his
shirt-sleeves, looking pale and wild, as was, perhaps, intelligible in
the circumstances. As he entered his unfamiliar marble halls he
staggered, and his red eyes rolled and his mouth gaped in a cod-like
fashion. "They've been at it 'ere, too, seemin'ly," he remarked huskily.

"There have been a few changes," said Horace, quietly, "as you can see.
You don't happen to know where they've put my dress-clothes, do you?"

"I don't 'appen to know where they've put nothink. Your dress clothes?
Why, I dunno where they've bin and put our little parler where me and
Maria 'ave set of a hevenin' all these years regular. I dunno where
they've put the pantry, nor yet the bath-room, with 'ot and cold water
laid on at my own expense. And you arsk me to find your hevenin' soot! I
consider, sir, I consider that a unwall--that a most unwarrant-terrible
liberty have bin took at my expense."

"My good man, don't talk rubbish!" said Horace.

"I'm talking to you about what _I know_, and I assert that an
Englishman's 'ome is his cashle, and nobody's got the right when his
backsh turned to go and make a 'Ummums of it. Not _nobody_ 'asn't!"

"Make a _what_ of it?" cried Ventimore.

"A 'Ummums--that's English, ain't it? A bloomin' Turkish baths! Who do
you suppose is goin' to take apartments furnished in this 'ere
ridic'loush style? What am I goin' to say to my landlord? It'll about
ruing me, this will; and after you bein' a lodger 'ere for five year and
more, and regarded by me and Maria in the light of one of the family.
It's 'ard--it's damned 'ard!"

"Now, look here," said Ventimore, sharply--for it was obvious that Mr.
Rapkin's studies had been lightened by copious refreshment--"pull
yourself together, man, and listen to me."

"I respeckfully decline to pull myshelf togerrer f'r anybody livin',"
said Mr. Rapkin, with a noble air. "I shtan' 'ere upon my dignity as a
man, sir. I shay, I shtand 'ere upon----" Here he waved his hand, and
sat down suddenly upon the marble floor.

"You can stand on anything you like--or can," said Horace; "but hear
what I've got to say. The--the people who made all these alterations
went beyond my instructions. I never wanted the house interfered with
like this. Still, if your landlord doesn't see that its value is
immensely improved, he's a fool, that's all. Anyway, I'll take care
_you_ shan't suffer. If I have to put everything back in its former
state, I will, at my own expense. So don't bother any more about
_that_."

"You're a gen'l'man, Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, cautiously regaining
his feet. "There's no mishtaking a gen'l'man. _I'm_ a gen'l'man."

"Of course you are," said Horace genially, "and I'll tell you how you're
going to show it. You're going straight downstairs to get your good wife
to pour some cold water over your head; and then you will finish
dressing, see what you can do to get a table of some sort and lay it for
dinner, and be ready to announce my friends when they arrive, and wait
afterwards. Do you see?"

"That will be all ri', Mr. Ventimore," said Rapkin, who was not far gone
enough to be beyond understanding or obeying. "You leave it entirely to
me. I'll unnertake that your friends shall be made comforrable, perfelly
comforrable. I've lived as butler in the besht, the mosht ecxlu--most
arishto--you know the sort o' fam'lies I'm tryin' to r'member--and--and
everything was always all ri', and _I_ shall be all ri' in a few
minutes."

With this assurance he stumbled downstairs, leaving Horace relieved to
some extent. Rapkin would be sober enough after his head had been under
the tap for a few minutes, and in any case there would be the hired
waiter to rely upon.

If he could only find out where his evening clothes were! He returned to
his room and made another frantic search--but they were nowhere to be
found; and as he could not bring himself to receive his guests in his
ordinary morning costume--which the Professor would probably construe as
a deliberate slight, and which would certainly seem a solecism in Mrs.
Futvoye's eyes, if not in her daughter's--he decided to put on the
Eastern robes, with the exception of a turban, which he could not manage
to wind round his head.

Thus arrayed he re-entered the domed hall, where he was annoyed to find
that no attempt had been made as yet to prepare a dinner-table, and he
was just looking forlornly round for a bell when Rapkin appeared. He had
apparently followed Horace's advice, for his hair looked wet and sleek,
and he was comparatively sober.

"This is too bad!" cried Horace; "my friends may be here at any moment
now--and nothing done. You don't propose to wait at table like that, do
you?" he added, as he noted the man's overcoat and the comforter round
his throat.

"I do not propose to wait in any garments whatsoever," said Rapkin; "I'm
a-goin' out, I am."

"Very well," said Horace; "then send the waiter up--I suppose he's
come?"

"He come--but he went away again--I told him as he wouldn't be
required."

"You told him that!" Horace said angrily, and then controlled himself.
"Come, Rapkin, be reasonable. You can't really mean to leave your wife
to cook the dinner, and serve it too!"

"She ain't intending to do neither; she've left the house already."

"You must fetch her back," cried Horace. "Good heavens, man, _can't_ you
see what a fix you're leaving me in? My friends have started long
ago--it's too late to wire to them, or make any other arrangements."

There was a knock, as he spoke, at the front door; and odd enough was
the familiar sound of the cast-iron knocker in that Arabian hall.

"There they are!" he said, and the idea of meeting them at the door and
proposing an instant adjournment to a restaurant occurred to him--till
he suddenly recollected that he would have to change and try to find
some money, even for that. "For the last time, Rapkin," he cried in
despair, "do you mean to tell me there's no dinner ready?"

"Oh," said Rapkin, "there's dinner right enough, and a lot o' barbarious
furriners downstairs a cookin' of it--that's what broke Maria's 'art--to
see it all took out of her 'ands, after the trouble she'd gone to."

"But I must have somebody to wait," exclaimed Horace.

"You've got waiters enough, as far as that goes. But if you expect a
hordinary Christian man to wait along of a lot o' narsty niggers, and be
at their beck and call, you're mistook, sir, for I'm going to sleep the
night at my brother-in-law's and take his advice, he bein' a doorkeeper
at a solicitor's orfice and knowing the law, about this 'ere business,
and so I wish you a good hevening, and 'oping your dinner will be to
your liking and satisfaction."

He went out by the farther archway, while from the entrance-hall Horace
could hear voices he knew only too well. The Futvoyes had come; well, at
all events, it seemed that there would be something for them to eat,
since Fakrash, in his anxiety to do the thing thoroughly, had furnished
both the feast and attendance himself--but who was there to announce the
guests? Where were these waiters Rapkin had spoken of? Ought he to go
and bring in his visitors himself?

These questions answered themselves the next instant, for, as he stood
there under the dome, the curtains of the central arch were drawn with a
rattle, and disclosed a double line of tall slaves in rich raiment,
their onyx eyes rolling and their teeth flashing in their chocolate-hued
countenances, as they salaamed.

Between this double line stood Professor and Mrs. Futvoye and Sylvia,
who had just removed their wraps and were gazing in undisguised
astonishment on the splendours which met their view.

Horace advanced to receive them; he felt he was in for it now, and the
only course left him was to put as good a face as he could on the
matter, and trust to luck to pull him through without discovery or
disaster.




CHAPTER IX

"PERSICOS ODI, PUER, APPARATUS"


"So you've found your way here at last?" said Horace, as he shook hands
heartily with the Professor and Mrs. Futvoye. "I can't tell you how
delighted I am to see you."

As a matter of fact, he was very far from being at ease, which made him
rather over-effusive, but he was determined that, if he could help it,
he would not betray the slightest consciousness of anything _bizarre_ or
unusual in his domestic arrangements.

"And these," said Mrs. Futvoye, who was extremely stately in black,
with old lace and steel embroidery--"these are the bachelor lodgings you
were so modest about! Really," she added, with a humorous twinkle in her
shrewd eyes, "you young men seem to understand how to make yourselves
comfortable--don't they, Anthony?"

"They do, indeed," said the Professor, dryly, though it manifestly cost
him some effort to conceal his appreciation. "To produce such results as
these must, if I mistake not, have entailed infinite research--and
considerable expense."

"No," said Horace, "no. You--you'd be surprised if you knew how little."

"I should have imagined," retorted the Professor, "that _any_ outlay on
apartments which I presume you do not contemplate occupying for an
extended period must be money thrown away. But, doubtless, you know
best."

"But your rooms are quite wonderful, Horace!" cried Sylvia, her charming
eyes dilating with admiration. "And where, _where_ did you get that
magnificent dressing-gown? I never saw anything so lovely in my life!"

She herself was lovely enough in a billowy, shimmering frock of a
delicate apple-green hue, her only ornament a deep-blue Egyptian scarab
with spread wings, which was suspended from her neck by a slender gold
chain.

"I--I ought to apologise for receiving you in this costume," said
Horace, with embarrassment; "but the fact is, I couldn't find my evening
clothes anywhere, so--so I put on the first things that came to hand."

"It is hardly necessary," said the Professor, conscious of being
correctly clad, and unconscious that his shirt-front was bulging and his
long-eared white tie beginning to work up towards his left jaw--"hardly
necessary to offer any apology for the simplicity of your costume--which
is entirely in keeping with the--ah--strictly Oriental character of your
interior."

"_I_ feel dreadfully out of keeping!" said Sylvia, "for there's nothing
in the least Oriental about _me_--unless it's my scarab--and he's I
don't know how many centuries behind the time, poor dear!"

"If you said 'thousands of years,' my dear," corrected the Professor,
"you would be more accurate. That scarab was taken out of a tomb of the
thirteenth dynasty."

"Well, I'm sure he'd rather be where he is," said Sylvia, and Ventimore
entirely agreed with her. "Horace, I _must_ look at everything. How
clever and original of you to transform an ordinary London house into
this!"

"Oh, well, you see," explained Horace, "it--it wasn't exactly done by
me."

"Whoever did it," said the Professor, "must have devoted considerable
study to Eastern art and architecture. May I ask the name of the firm
who executed the alterations?"

"I really couldn't tell you, sir," answered Horace, who was beginning
to understand how very bad a _mauvais quart d'heure_ can be.

"You can't tell me!" exclaimed the Professor. "You order these
extensive, and _I_ should say expensive, decorations, and you don't know
the firm you selected to carry them out!"

"Of course I _know_," said Horace, "only I don't happen to remember at
this moment. Let me see, now. Was it Liberty? No, I'm almost certain it
wasn't Liberty. It might have been Maple, but I'm not sure. Whoever did
do it, they were marvellously cheap."

"I am glad to hear it," said the Professor, in his most unpleasant tone.
"Where is your dining-room?"

"Why, I rather think," said Horace, helplessly, as he saw a train of
attendants laying a round cloth on the floor, "I rather think _this_ is
the dining-room."

"You appear to be in some doubt?" said the Professor.

"I leave it to them--it depends where they choose to lay the cloth,"
said Horace. "Sometimes in one place; sometimes in another. There's a
great charm in uncertainty," he faltered.

"Doubtless," said the Professor.

By this time two of the slaves, under the direction of a tall and
turbaned black, had set a low ebony stool, inlaid with silver and
tortoiseshell in strange devices, on the round carpet, when other
attendants followed with a circular silver tray containing covered
dishes, which they placed on the stool and salaamed.

"Your--ah--groom of the chambers," said the Professor, "seems to have
decided that we should dine here. I observe they are making signs to you
that the food is on the table."

"So it is," said Ventimore. "Shall we sit down?"

"But, my dear Horace," said Mrs. Futvoye, "your butler has forgotten the
chairs."

"You don't appear to realise, my dear," said the Professor, "that in
such an interior as this chairs would be hopelessly incongruous."

"I'm afraid there aren't any," said Horace, for there was nothing but
four fat cushions. "Let's sit down on these," he proposed. "It--it's
more fun!"

"At my time of life," said the Professor, irritably, as he let himself
down on the plumpest cushion, "such fun as may be derived from eating
one's meals on the floor fails to appeal to my sense of humour. However,
I admit that it is thoroughly Oriental."

"_I_ think it's delightful," said Sylvia; "ever so much nicer than a
stiff, conventional dinner-party."

"One may be unconventional," remarked her father, "without escaping the
penalty of stiffness. Go away, sir! go away!" he added snappishly, to
one of the slaves, who was attempting to pour water over his hands.
"Your servant, Ventimore, appears to imagine that I go out to dinner
without taking the trouble to wash my hands previously. This, I may
mention, is _not_ the case."

"It's only an Eastern ceremony, Professor," said Horace.

"I am perfectly well aware of what is customary in the East," retorted
the Professor; "it does not follow that such--ah--hygienic precautions
are either necessary or desirable at a Western table."

Horace made no reply; he was too much occupied in gazing blankly at the
silver dish-covers and wondering what in the world might be underneath;
nor was his perplexity relieved when the covers were removed, for he was
quite at a loss to guess how he was supposed to help the contents
without so much as a fork.

The chief attendant, however, solved that difficulty by intimating in
pantomime that the guests were expected to use their fingers.

Sylvia accomplished this daintily and with intense amusement, but her
father and mother made no secret of their repugnance. "If I were dining
in the desert with a Sheik, sir," observed the Professor, "I should, I
hope, know how to conform to his habits and prejudices. Here, in the
heart of London, I confess all this strikes me as a piece of needless
pedantry."

"I'm very sorry," said Horace; "I'd have some knives and forks if I
could--but I'm afraid these fellows don't even understand what they are,
so it's useless to order any. We--we must rough it a little, that's all.
I hope that--er--fish is all right, Professor?"

He did not know precisely what kind of fish it was, but it was fried in
oil of sesame and flavoured with a mixture of cinnamon and ginger, and
the Professor did not appear to be making much progress with it.
Ventimore himself would have infinitely preferred the original cod and
oyster sauce, but that could not be helped now.

"Thank you," said the Professor, "it is curious--but characteristic. Not
_any_ more, thank you."

Horace could only trust that the next course would be more of a success.
It was a dish of mutton, stewed with peaches, jujubes and sugar, which
Sylvia declared was delicious. Her parents made no comment.

"Might I ask for something to drink?" said the Professor, presently;
whereupon a cupbearer poured him a goblet of iced sherbet perfumed with
conserve of violets.

"I'm very sorry, my dear fellow," he said, after sipping it, "but if I
drink this I shall be ill all next day. If I might have a glass of
wine----"

Another slave instantly handed him a cup of wine, which he tasted and
set down with a wry face and a shudder. Horace tried some afterwards,
and was not surprised. It was a strong, harsh wine, in which goatskin
and resin struggled for predominance.

"It's an old and, I make no doubt, a fine wine," observed the Professor,
with studied politeness, "but I fancy it must have suffered in
transportation. I really think that, with my gouty tendency, a little
whisky and Apollinaris would be better for me--if you keep such
occidental fluids in the house?"

Horace felt convinced that it would be useless to order the slaves to
bring whisky or Apollinaris, which were of course, unknown in the
Jinnee's time, so he could do nothing but apologise for their absence.

"No matter," said the Professor; "I am not so thirsty that I cannot wait
till I get home."

It was some consolation that both Sylvia and her mother commended the
sherbet, and even appreciated--or were so obliging as to say they
appreciated--the _entree_, which consisted of rice and mincemeat wrapped
in vine-leaves, and certainly was not appetising in appearance, besides
being difficult to dispose of gracefully.

It was followed by a whole lamb fried in oil, stuffed with pounded
pistachio nuts, pepper, nutmeg, and coriander seeds, and liberally
besprinkled with rose-water and musk.

Only Horace had sufficient courage to attack the lamb--and he found
reason to regret it. Afterwards came fowls stuffed with raisins,
parsley, and crumbled bread, and the banquet ended with pastry of weird
forms and repellent aspect.

"I hope," said Horace, anxiously, "you don't find this Eastern cookery
very--er--unpalatable?"--he himself was feeling distinctly unwell: "it's
rather a change from the ordinary routine."

"I have made a truly wonderful dinner, thank you," replied the
Professor, not, it is to be feared, without intention. "Even in the East
I have eaten nothing approaching this."

"But where did your landlady pick up this extraordinary cooking, my dear
Horace?" said Mrs. Futvoye. "I thought you said she was merely a plain
cook. Has she ever lived in the East?"

"Not exactly _in_ the East," exclaimed Horace; "not what you would call
_living_ there. The fact is," he continued, feeling that he was in
danger of drivelling, and that he had better be as candid as he could,
"this dinner _wasn't_ cooked by her. She--she was obliged to go away
quite suddenly. So the dinner was all sent in by--by a sort of
contractor, you know. He supplies the whole thing, waiters and all."

"I was thinking," said the Professor, "that for a bachelor--an _engaged_
bachelor--you seemed to maintain rather a large establishment."

"Oh, they're only here for the evening, sir," said Horace. "Capital
fellows--more picturesque than the local greengrocer--and they don't
breathe on the top of your head."

"They're perfect dears, Horace," remarked Sylvia; "only--well, just a
_little_ creepy-crawly to look at!"

"It would ill become me to criticise the style and method of our
entertainment," put in the Professor, acidly, "otherwise I might be
tempted to observe that it scarcely showed that regard for economy which
I should have----"

"Now, Anthony," put in his wife, "don't let us have any fault-finding.
I'm sure Horace has done it all delightfully--yes, delightfully; and
even if he _has_ been just a little extravagant, it's not as if he was
obliged to be as economical _now_, you know!"

"My dear," said the Professor, "I have yet to learn that the prospect of
an increased income in the remote future is any justification for
reckless profusion in the present."

"If you only knew," said Horace, "you wouldn't call it profusion.
It--it's not at all the dinner I meant it to be, and I'm afraid it
wasn't particularly nice--but it's certainly not expensive."

"Expensive is, of course, a very relative term. But I think I have the
right to ask whether this is the footing on which you propose to begin
your married life?"

It was an extremely awkward question, as the reader will perceive. If
Ventimore replied--as he might with truth--that he had no intention
whatever of maintaining his wife in luxury such as that, he stood
convicted of selfish indulgence as a bachelor; if, on the other hand, he
declared that he _did_ propose to maintain his wife in the same
fantastic and exaggerated splendour as the present, it would certainly
confirm her father's disbelief in his prudence and economy.

And it was that egregious old ass of a Jinnee, as Horace thought, with
suppressed rage, who had let him in for all this, and who was now far
beyond all remonstrance or reproach!

Before he could bring himself to answer the question, the attendants had
noiselessly removed the tray and stool, and were handing round rosewater
in a silver ewer and basin, the character of which, luckily or
otherwise, turned the Professor's inquisitiveness into a different
channel.

"These are not bad--really not bad at all," he said, inspecting the
design. "Where did you manage to pick them up?"

"I didn't," said Horace; "they're provided by the--the person who
supplies the dinner."

"Can you give me his address?" said the Professor, scenting a bargain;
"because really, you know, these things are probably antiques--much too
good to be used for business purposes."

"I'm wrong," said Horace, lamely; "these particular things are--are lent
by an eccentric Oriental gentleman, as a great favour."

"Do I know him? Is he a collector of such things?"

"You wouldn't have met him; he--he's lived a very retired life of late."

"I should very much like to see his collection. If you could give me a
letter of introduction----"

"No," said Horace, in a state of prickly heat; "it wouldn't be any use.
His collection is never shown. He--he's a most peculiar man. And just
now he's abroad."

"Ah! pardon me if I've been indiscreet; but I concluded from what you
said that this--ah--banquet was furnished by a professional caterer."

"Oh, the banquet? Yes, _that_ came from the Stores," said Horace,
mendaciously. "The--the Oriental Cookery Department. They've just
started it, you know; so--so I thought I'd give them a trial. But it's
not what I call properly organised yet."

The slaves were now, with low obeisances, inviting them to seat
themselves on the divan which lined part of the hall.

"Ha!" said the Professor, as he rose from his cushion, cracking audibly,
"so we're to have our coffee and what not over there, hey?... Well, my
boy, I shan't be sorry, I confess, to have something to lean my back
against--and a cigar, a mild cigar, will--ah--aid digestion. You _do_
smoke here?"

"Smoke?" said Horace, "Why, of course! All over the place. Here," he
said, clapping his hands, which brought an obsequious slave instantly to
his side; "just bring coffee and cigars, will you?"

The slave rolled his brandy-ball eyes in obvious perplexity.

"Coffee," said Horace; "you must know what coffee is. And cigarettes.
Well, _chibouks_, then--'hubble-bubbles'--if that's what you call them."

But the slave clearly did not understand, and it suddenly struck Horace
that, since 'tobacco and coffee were not introduced, even in the East,
till long after the Jinnee's time, he, as the founder of the feast,
would naturally be unaware how indispensable they had become at the
present day.

"I'm really awfully sorry," he said; "but they don't seem to have
provided any. I shall speak to the manager about it. And, unfortunately,
I don't know where my own cigars are."

"It's of no consequence," said the Professor, with the sort of stoicism
that minds very much. "I am a moderate smoker at best, and Turkish
coffee, though delicious, is apt to keep me awake. But if you could let
me have a look at that brass bottle you got at poor Collingham's sale, I
should be obliged to you."

Horace had no idea where it was then, nor could he, until the Professor
came to the rescue with a few words of Arabic, manage to make the slaves
comprehend what he wished them to find.

At length, however, two of them appeared, bearing the brass bottle with
every sign of awe, and depositing it at Ventimore's feet.

Professor Futvoye, after wiping and adjusting his glasses, proceeded to
examine the vessel. "It certainly is a most unusual type of brassware,"
he said, "as unique in its way as the silver ewer and basin; and, as you
thought, there does seem to be something resembling an inscription on
the cap, though in this dim light it is almost impossible to be sure."

While he was poring over it, Horace seated himself on the divan by
Sylvia's side, hoping for one of the whispered conversations permitted
to affianced lovers; he had pulled through the banquet somehow, and on
the whole he felt thankful things had not gone off worse. The noiseless
and uncanny attendants, whom he did not know whether to regard as
Efreets, or demons, or simply illusions, but whose services he had no
wish to retain, had all withdrawn. Mrs. Futvoye was peacefully
slumbering, and her husband was in a better humour than he had been all
the evening.

Suddenly from behind the hangings of one of the archways came strange,
discordant sounds, barbaric janglings and thumpings, varied by yowls as
of impassioned cats.

Sylvia drew involuntarily closer to Horace; her mother woke with a
start, and the Professor looked up from the brass bottle with returning
irritation.

"What's this? What's this?" he demanded; "some fresh surprise in store
for us?"

It was quite as much of a surprise for Horace, but he was spared the
humiliation of owning it by the entrance of some half-dozen dusky
musicians swathed in white and carrying various strangely fashioned
instruments, with which they squatted down in a semi-circle by the
opposite wall, and began to twang, and drub, and squall with the
complacent cacophony of an Eastern orchestra. Clearly Fakrash was
determined that nothing should be wanting to make the entertainment a
complete success.

"What a very extraordinary noise!" said Mrs. Futvoye; "surely they can't
mean it for music?"

"Yes, they do," said Horace; "it--it's really more harmonious than it
sounds--you have to get accustomed to the--er--notation. When you do,
it's rather soothing than otherwise."

"I dare say," said the poor lady. "And do _they_ come from the Stores,
too?"

"No," said Horace, with a fine assumption of candour, "they don't; they
come from--the Arab Encampment at Earl's Court--parties and _fetes_
attended, you know. But they play _here_ for nothing; they--they want to
get their name known, you see; very deserving and respectable set of
fellows."

"My dear Horace!" remarked Mrs. Futvoye, "if they expect to get
engagements for parties and so on, they really ought to try and learn a
tune of _some_ sort."

"I understand, Horace," whispered Sylvia, "it's very naughty of you to
have gone to all this trouble and expense (for, of course, it _has_ cost
you a lot) just to please us; but, whatever, dad may say, I love you all
the better for doing it!"

And her hand stole softly into his, and he felt that he could forgive
Fakrash everything, even--even the orchestra.

But there was something unpleasantly spectral about their shadowy forms,
which showed in grotesquely baggy and bulgy shapes in the uncertain
light. Some of them wore immense and curious white head-dresses, which
gave them the appearance of poulticed thumbs; and they all went on
scraping and twiddling and caterwauling with a doleful monotony that
Horace felt must be getting on his guests' nerves, as it certainly was
on his own.

He did not know how to get rid of them, but he sketched a kind of
gesture in the air, intended to intimate that, while their efforts had
afforded the keenest pleasure to the company generally, they were
unwilling to monopolise them any longer, and the artists were at liberty
to retire.

Perhaps there is no art more liable to misconstruction than pantomime;
certainly, Ventimore's efforts in this direction were misunderstood, for
the music became wilder, louder, more aggressively and abominably out of
tune--and then a worse thing happened.

For the curtains separated, and, heralded by sharp yelps from the
performers, a female figure floated into the hall and began to dance
with a slow and sinuous grace.

Her beauty, though of a pronounced Oriental type, was unmistakable, even
in the subdued light which fell on her; her diaphanous robe indicated a
faultless form; her dark tresses were braided with sequins; she had the
long, lustrous eyes, the dusky cheeks artificially whitened, and the
fixed scarlet smile of the Eastern dancing-girl of all time.

And she paced the floor with her tinkling feet, writhing and undulating
like some beautiful cobra, while the players worked themselves up to yet
higher and higher stages of frenzy.

Ventimore, as he sat there looking helplessly on, felt a return of his
resentment against the Jinnee. It was really too bad of him; he ought,
at his age, to have known better!

Not that there was anything objectionable in the performance itself; but
still, it was _not_ the kind of entertainment for such an occasion.
Horace wished now he had mentioned to Fakrash who the guests were whom
he expected, and then perhaps even the Jinnee would have exercised more
tact in his arrangements.

"And does this girl come from Earl's Court?" inquired Mrs. Futvoye, who
was now thoroughly awake.

"Oh dear, no," said Horace; "I engaged _her_ at--at Harrod's--the
Entertainment Bureau. They told me there she was rather good--struck out
a line of her own, don't you know. But perfectly correct; she--she only
does this to support an invalid aunt."

These statements were, as he felt even in making them, not only
gratuitous, but utterly unconvincing, but he had arrived at that
condition in which a man discovers with terror the unsuspected amount of
mendacity latent in his system.

"I should have thought there were other ways of supporting invalid
aunts," remarked Mrs. Futvoye. "What is this young lady's name?"

"Tinkler," said Horace, on the spur of the moment. "Miss Clementine
Tinkler."

"But surely she is a foreigner?"

"Mademoiselle, I ought to have said. And Tinkla--with an 'a,' you know.
I believe her mother was of Arabian extraction--but I really don't
know," explained Horace, conscious that Sylvia had withdrawn her hand
from his, and was regarding him with covert anxiety.

"I really _must_ put a stop to this," he thought.

"You're getting bored by all this, darling," he said aloud; "so am I.
I'll tell them to go." And he rose and held out his hand as a sign that
the dance should cease.

It ceased at once; but, to his unspeakable horror, the dancer crossed
the floor with a swift jingling rush, and sank in a gauzy heap at his
feet, seizing his hand in both hers and covering it with kisses, while
she murmured speeches in some tongue unknown to him.

"Is this a usual feature in Miss Tinkla's entertainments, may I ask?"
said Mrs. Futvoye, bristling with not unnatural indignation.

"I really don't know," said the unhappy Horace; "I can't make out what
she's saying."

"If I understand her rightly," said the Professor, "she is addressing
you as the 'light of her eyes and the vital spirit of her heart.'"

"Oh!" said Horace, "she's quite mistaken, you know. It--it's the
emotional artist temperament--they don't _mean_ anything by it. My--my
dear young lady," he added, "you've danced most delightfully, and I'm
sure we're all most deeply indebted to you; but we won't detain you any
longer. Professor," he added, as she made no offer to rise, "_will_ you
kindly explain to them in Arabic that I should be obliged by their going
at once?"

The Professor said a few words, which had the desired effect. The girl
gave a little scream and scudded through the archway, and the musicians
seized their instruments and scuttled after her.

"I am so sorry," said Horace, whose evening seemed to him to have been
chiefly spent in apologies; "it's not at all the kind of entertainment
one would expect from a place like Whiteley's."

"By no means," agreed the Professor; "but I understood you to say Miss
Tinkla was recommended to you by Harrod's?"

"Very likely, sir," said Horace; "but that doesn't affect the case. I
shouldn't expect it from _them_."

"Probably they don't know how shamelessly that young person conducts
herself," said Mrs. Futvoye. "And I think it only right that they should
be told."

"I shall complain, of course," said Horace. "I shall put it very
strongly."

"A protest would have more weight coming from a woman," said Mrs.
Futvoye; "and, as a shareholder in the company, I shall feel bound----"

"No, I wouldn't," said Horace; "in fact, you mustn't. For, now I come to
think of it, she didn't come from Harrod's, after all, or Whiteley's
either."

"Then perhaps you will be good enough to inform us where she _did_ come
from?"

"I would if I knew," said Horace; "but I don't."

"What!" cried the Professor, sharply, "do you mean to say you can't
account for the existence of a dancing-girl who--in my daughter's
presence--kisses your hand and addresses you by endearing epithets?"

"Oriental metaphor!" said Horace. "She was a little overstrung. Of
course, if I had had any idea she would make such a scene as that----
Sylvia," he broke off, "_you_ don't doubt me?"

"No, Horace," said Sylvia, simply, "I'm sure you must have _some_
explanation--only I do think it would be better if you gave it."

"If I _told_ you the truth," said Horace, slowly, "you would none of you
believe me!"

"Then you admit," put in the Professor, "that hitherto you have _not_
been telling the truth?"

"Not as invariably as I could have wished," Horace confessed.

"So I suspected. Then, unless you can bring yourself to be perfectly
candid, you can hardly wonder at our asking you to consider your
engagement as broken off?"

"Broken off!" echoed Horace. "Sylvia, you won't give me up! You _know_ I
wouldn't do anything unworthy of you!"

"I'm certain that you can't have done anything which would make me love
you one bit the less if I knew it. So why not be quite open with us?"

"Because, darling," said Horace, "I'm in such a fix that it would only
make matters worse."

"In that case," said the Professor, "and as it is already rather late,
perhaps you will allow one of your numerous retinue to call a
four-wheeler?"

Horace clapped his hands, but no one answered the summons, and he could
not find any of the slaves in the antechamber.

"I'm afraid all the servants have left," he explained; and it is to be
feared he would have added that they were all obliged to return to the
contractor by eleven, only he caught the Professor's eye and decided
that he had better refrain. "If you will wait here, I'll go out and
fetch a cab," he added.

"There is no occasion to trouble you," said the Professor; "my wife and
daughter have already got their things on, and we will walk until we
find a cab. Now, Mr. Ventimore, we will bid you good-night and good-bye.
For, after what has happened, you will, I trust, have the good taste to
discontinue your visits and make no attempt to see Sylvia again."

"Upon my honour," protested Horace, "I have done nothing to warrant you
in shutting your doors against me."

"I am unable to agree with you. I have never thoroughly approved of your
engagement, because, as I told you at the time, I suspected you of
recklessness in money matters. Even in accepting your invitation
to-night I warned you, as you may remember, not to make the occasion an
excuse for foolish extravagance. I come here, and find you in apartments
furnished and decorated (as you informed us) by yourself, and on a scale
which would be prodigal in a millionaire. You have a suite of retainers
which (except for their nationality and imperfect discipline) a prince
might envy. You provide a banquet of--hem!--delicacies which must have
cost you infinite trouble and unlimited expense--this, after I had
expressly stipulated for a quiet family dinner! Not content with that,
you procure for our diversion Arab music and dancing of a--of a highly
recondite character. I should be unworthy of the name of father, sir,
if I were to entrust my only daughter's happiness to a young man with so
little common sense, so little self-restraint. And she will understand
my motives and obey my wishes."

"You're right, Professor, according to your lights," admitted Horace.
"And yet--confound it all!--you're utterly wrong, too!"

"Oh, Horace," cried Sylvia; "if you had only listened to dad, and not
gone to all this foolish, foolish expense, we might have been so happy!"

"But I have gone to no expense. All this hasn't cost me a penny!"

"Ah, there _is_ some mystery! Horace, if you love me, you will
explain--here, now, before it's too late!"

"My darling," groaned Horace, "I would, like a shot, if I thought it
would be of the least use!"

"Hitherto," said the Professor, "you cannot be said to have been happy
in your explanations--and I should advise you not to venture on any
more. Good-night, once more. I only wish it were possible, without
needless irony, to make the customary acknowledgments for a pleasant
evening."

Mrs. Futvoye had already hurried her daughter away, and, though she had
left her husband to express his sentiments unaided, she made it
sufficiently clear that she entirely agreed with them.

Horace stood in the outer hall by the fountain, in which his drowned
chrysanthemums were still floating, and gazed in stupefied despair after
his guests as they went down the path to the gate. He knew only too well
that they would never cross his threshold, nor he theirs, again.

Suddenly he came to himself with a start. "I'll try it!" he cried. "I
can't and won't stand this!" And he rushed after them bareheaded.

"Professor!" he said breathlessly, as he caught him up, "one moment. On
second thoughts, I _will_ tell you my secret, if you will promise me a
patient hearing."

"The pavement is hardly the place for confidences," replied the
Professor, "and, if it were, your costume is calculated to attract more
remark than is desirable. My wife and daughter have gone on--if you will
permit me, I will overtake them--I shall be at home to-morrow morning,
should you wish to see me."

"No--to-night, to-night!" urged Horace. "I can't sleep in that infernal
place with this on my mind. Put Mrs. Futvoye and Sylvia into a cab,
Professor, and come back. It's not late, and I won't keep you long--but
for Heaven's sake, let me tell you my story at once."

Probably the Professor was not without some curiosity on the subject; at
all events he yielded. "Very well," he said, "go into the house and I
will rejoin you presently. Only remember," he added, "that I shall
accept no statement without the fullest proof. Otherwise you will merely
be wasting your time and mine."

"Proof!" thought Horace, gloomily, as he returned to his Arabian halls,
"The only decent proof I could produce would be old Fakrash, and he's
not likely to turn up again--especially now I want him."

A little later the Professor returned, having found a cab and despatched
his women-folk home. "Now, young man," he said, as he unwound his
wrapper and seated himself on the divan by Horace's side, "I can give
you just ten minutes to tell your story in, so let me beg you to make it
as brief and as comprehensible as you can."

It was not exactly an encouraging invitation in the circumstances, but
Horace took his courage in both hands and told him everything, just as
it had happened.

"And that's your story?" said the Professor, after listening to the
narrative with the utmost attention, when Horace came to the end.

"That's my story, sir," said Horace. "And I hope it has altered your
opinion of me."

"It has," replied the Professor, in an altered tone; "it has indeed.
Yours is a sad case--a very sad case."

"It's rather awkward, isn't it? But I don't mind so long as you
understand. And you'll tell Sylvia--as much as you think proper?"

"Yes--yes; I must tell Sylvia."

"And I may go on seeing her as usual?"

"Well--will you be guided by my advice--the advice of one who has lived
more than double your years?"

"Certainly," said Horace.

"Then, if I were you, I should go away at once, for a complete change of
air and scene."

"That's impossible, sir--you forget my work!"

"Never mind your work, my boy: leave it for a while, try a sea-voyage,
go round the world, get quite away from these associations."

"But I might come across the Jinnee again," objected Horace; "_he's_
travelling, as I told you."

"Yes, yes, to be sure. Still, I should go away. Consult any doctor, and
he'll tell you the same thing."

"Consult any---- Good God!" cried Horace; "I see what it is--you think
I'm mad!"

"No, no, my dear boy," said the Professor, soothingly, "not mad--nothing
of the sort; perhaps your mental equilibrium is just a trifle--it's
quite intelligible. You see, the sudden turn in your professional
prospects, coupled with your engagement to Sylvia--I've known stronger
minds than yours thrown off their balance--temporarily, of course, quite
temporarily--by less than that."

"You believe I am suffering from delusions?"

"I don't say that. I think you may see ordinary things in a distorted
light."

"Anyhow, you don't believe there really was a Jinnee inside that
bottle?"

"Remember, you yourself assured me at the time you opened it that you
found nothing whatever inside it. Isn't it more credible that you were
right then than that you should be right now?"

"Well," said Horace, "you saw all those black slaves; you ate, or tried
to eat, that unutterably beastly banquet; you heard that music--and then
there was the dancing-girl. And this hall we're in, this robe I've got
on--are _they_ delusions? Because if they are, I'm afraid you will have
to admit that _you're_ mad too."

"Ingeniously put," said the Professor. "I fear it is unwise to argue
with you. Still, I will venture to assert that a strong imagination like
yours, over-heated and saturated with Oriental ideas--to which I fear I
may have contributed--is not incapable of unconsciously assisting in its
own deception. In other words, I think that you may have provided all
this yourself from various quarters without any clear recollection of
the fact."

"That's very scientific and satisfactory as far as it goes, my dear
Professor," said Horace; "but there's one piece of evidence which may
upset your theory--and that's this brass bottle."

"If your reasoning powers were in their normal condition," said the
Professor, compassionately, "you would see that the mere production of
an empty bottle can be no proof of what it contained--or, for that
matter, that it ever contained anything at all!"

"Oh, I see _that_," said Horace; "but _this_ bottle has a stopper with
what you yourself admit to be an inscription of some sort. Suppose that
inscription confirms my story--what then? All I ask you to do is to make
it out for yourself before you decide that I'm either a liar or a
lunatic."

"I warn you," said the Professor, "that if you are trusting to my being
unable to decipher the inscription, you are deceiving yourself. You
represent that this bottle belongs to the period of Solomon--that is,
about a thousand years B.C. Probably you are not aware that the earliest
specimens of Oriental metal-work in existence are not older than the
tenth century of our era. But, granting that it is as old as you allege,
I shall certainly be able to read any inscription there may be on it. I
have made out clay tablets in Cuneiform which were certainly written a
thousand years before Solomon's time."

"So much the better," said Horace. "I'm as certain as I can be that,
whatever is written on that lid--whether it's Phoenician, or Cuneiform,
or anything else--must have some reference to a Jinnee confined in the
bottle, or at least bear the seal of Solomon. But there the thing
is--examine it for yourself."

"Not now," said the Professor; "it's too late, and the light here is not
strong enough. But I'll tell you what I will do. I'll take this stopper
thing home with me, and examine it carefully to-morrow--on one
condition."

"You have only to name it," said Horace.

"My condition is, that if I, and one or two other Orientalists to whom I
may submit it, come to the conclusion that there is no real inscription
at all--or, if any, that a date and meaning must be assigned to it
totally inconsistent with your story--you will accept our finding and
acknowledge that you have been under a delusion, and dismiss the whole
affair from your mind."

"Oh, I don't mind agreeing to _that_," said Horace, "particularly as
it's my only chance."

"Very well, then," said the Professor, as he removed the metal cap and
put it in his pocket; "you may depend upon hearing from me in a day or
two. Meantime, my boy," he continued, almost affectionately, "why not
try a short bicycle tour somewhere, hey? You're a cyclist, I
know--anything but allow yourself to dwell on Oriental subjects."

"It's not so easy to avoid dwelling on them as you think!" said Horace,
with rather a dreary laugh. "And I fancy, Professor, that--whether you
like it or not--you'll have to believe in that Jinnee of mine sooner or
later."

"I can scarcely conceive," replied the Professor, who was by this time
at the outer door, "any degree of evidence which could succeed in
convincing me that your brass bottle had ever contained an Arabian
Jinnee. However, I shall endeavour to preserve an open mind on the
subject. Good evening to you."

As soon as he was alone, Horace paced up and down his deserted halls in
a state of simmering rage as he thought how eagerly he had looked
forward to his little dinner-party; how intimate and delightful it might
have been, and what a monstrous and prolonged nightmare it had actually
proved. And at the end of it there he was--in a fantastic, impossible
dwelling, deserted by every one, his chances of setting himself right
with Sylvia hanging on the slenderest thread; unknown difficulties and
complications threatening him from every side!

He owed all this to Fakrash. Yes, that incorrigibly grateful Jinnee,
with his antiquated notions and his high-flown professions, had
contrived to ruin him more disastrously than if he had been his
bitterest foe! Ah! if he could be face to face with him once more--if
only for five minutes--he would be restrained by no false delicacy: he
would tell him fairly and plainly what a meddling, blundering old fool
he was. But Fakrash had taken his flight for ever: there were no means
of calling him back--nothing to be done now but go to bed and sleep--if
he could!

Exasperated by the sense of his utter helplessness, Ventimore went to
the arch which led to his bed-chamber and drew the curtain back with a
furious pull. And just within the archway, standing erect with folded
arms and the smile of fatuous benignity which Ventimore was beginning to
know and dread, was the form of Fakrash-el-Aamash, the Jinnee!




CHAPTER X

NO PLACE LIKE HOME!


"May thy head long survive!" said Fakrash, by way of salutation, as he
stepped through the archway.

"You're very good," said Horace, whose anger had almost evaporated in
the relief of the Jinnee's unexpected return, "but I don't think any
head can survive this sort of thing long."

"Art thou content with this dwelling I have provided for thee?" inquired
the Jinnee, glancing around the stately hall with perceptible
complacency.

It would have been positively brutal to say how very far from contented
he felt, so Horace could only mumble that he had never been lodged like
that before in all his life.

"It is far below thy deserts," Fakrash observed graciously. "And were
thy friends amazed at the manner of their entertainment?"

"They were," said Horace.

"A sure method of preserving friends is to feast them with liberality,"
remarked the Jinnee.

This was rather more than Horace's temper could stand. "You were kind
enough to provide my friends with such a feast," he said, "that they'll
never come _here_ again."

"How so? Were not the meats choice and abounding in fatness? Was not the
wine sweet, and the sherbet like unto perfumed snow?"

"Oh, everything was--er--as nice as possible," said Horace. "Couldn't
have been better."

"Yet thou sayest that thy friends will return no more--for what reason?"

"Well, you see," explained Horace, reluctantly, "there's such a thing
as doing people _too_ well. I mean, it isn't everybody that appreciates
Arabian cooking. But they might have stood that. It was the dancing-girl
that did for me."

"I commanded that a houri, lovelier than the full moon, and graceful as
a young gazelle, should appear for the delight of thy guests."

"She came," said Horace, gloomily.

"Acquaint me with that which hath occurred--for I perceive plainly that
something hath fallen out contrary to thy desires."

"Well," said Horace, "if it had been a bachelor party, there would have
been no harm in the houri; but, as it happened, two of my guests were
ladies, and they--well, they not unnaturally put a wrong construction on
it all."

"Verily," exclaimed the Jinnee, "thy words are totally incomprehensible
to me."

"I don't know what the custom may be in Arabia," said Horace, "but with
us it is not usual for a man to engage a houri to dance after dinner to
amuse the lady he is proposing to marry. It's the kind of attention
she'd be most unlikely to appreciate.

"Then was one of thy guests the damsel whom thou art seeking to marry?"

"She was," said Horace, "and the other two were her father and mother.
From which you may imagine that it was not altogether agreeable for me
when your gazelle threw herself at my feet and hugged my knees and
declared that I was the light of her eyes. Of course, it all meant
nothing--it's probably the conventional behaviour for a gazelle, and I'm
not reflecting upon her in the least. But, in the circumstances, it
_was_ compromising."

"I thought," said Fakrash, "that thou assuredst me that thou wast not
contracted to any damsel?"

"I think I only said that there was no one whom I would trouble you to
procure as a wife for me," replied Horace; "I certainly was
engaged--though, after this evening, my engagement is at an end--unless
... that reminds me, do you happen to know whether there really _was_ an
inscription on the seal of your bottle, and what it said?"

"I know naught of any inscription," said the Jinnee; "bring me the seal
that I may see it."

"I haven't got it by me at this moment," said Horace; "I lent it to my
friend--the father of this young lady I told you of. You see, Mr.
Fakrash, you got me into--I mean, I was in such a hole over this affair
that I was obliged to make a clean breast of it to him. And he wouldn't
believe it, so it struck me that there might be an inscription of some
sort on the seal, saying who you were, and why Solomon had you confined
in the bottle. Then the Professor would be obliged to admit that there's
something in my story."

"Truly, I wonder at thee and at the smallness of thy penetration," the
Jinnee commented; "for if there were indeed any writing upon this seal,
it is not possible that one of thy race should be able to decipher it."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Horace; "Professor Futvoye is an Oriental
scholar; he can make out any inscription, no matter how many thousands
of years old it may be. If anything's there, he'll decipher it. The
question is whether anything _is_ there."

The effect of this speech on Fakrash was as unexpected as it was
inexplicable: the Jinnee's features, usually so mild, began to work
convulsively until they became terrible to look at, and suddenly, with a
fierce howl, he shot up to nearly double his ordinary stature.

"O thou of little sense and breeding!" he cried, in a loud voice; "how
camest thou to deliver the bottle in which I was confined into the hands
of this learned man?"

Ventimore, startled as he was, did not lose his self-possession. "My
dear sir," he said, "I did not suppose you could have any further use
for it. And, as a matter of fact, I didn't give Professor Futvoye the
bottle--which is over there in the corner--but merely the stopper. I
wish you wouldn't tower over me like that--it gives me a crick in the
neck to talk to you. Why on earth should you make such a fuss about my
lending the seal; what possible difference can it make to you even if it
does confirm my story? And it's of immense importance to _me_ that the
Professor should believe I told the truth."

"I spoke in haste," said the Jinnee, slowly resuming his normal size,
and looking slightly ashamed of his recent outburst as well as
uncommonly foolish. "The bottle truly is of no value; and as for the
stopper, since it is but lent, it is no great matter. If there be any
legend upon the seal, perchance this learned man of whom thou speakest
will by this time have deciphered it?"

"No," said Horace, "he won't tackle it till to-morrow. And it's as
likely as not that when he does he won't find any reference to
_you_--and I shall be up a taller tree than ever!"

"Art thou so desirous that he should receive proof that thy story is
true?"

"Why, of course I am! Haven't I been saying so all this time?"

"Who can satisfy him so surely as I?"

"You!" cried Horace. "Do you mean to say you really would? Mr. Fakrash,
you _are_ an old brick! That would be the very thing!"

"There is naught," said the Jinnee, smiling indulgently, "that I would
not do to promote thy welfare, for thou hast rendered me inestimable
service. Acquaint me therefore with the abode of this sage, and I will
present myself before him, and if haply he should find no inscription
upon the seal, or its purport should be hidden from him, then will I
convince him that thou hast spoken the truth and no lie."

Horace very willingly gave him the Professor's address. "Only don't
drop in on him to-night, you know," he thought it prudent to add, "or
you might startle him. Call any time after breakfast to-morrow, and
you'll find him in."

"To-night," said Fakrash, "I return to pursue my search after Suleyman
(on whom be peace!). For not yet have I found him."

"If you _will_ try to do so many things at once," said Horace, "I don't
see how you can expect much result."

"At Nineveh they knew him not--for where I left a city I found but a
heap of ruins, tenanted by owls and bats."

"_They say the lion and the lizard keep the Courts_----" murmured
Horace, half to himself. "I was afraid you might be disappointed with
Nineveh myself. Why not run over to Sheba? You might hear of him there."

"Seba of El-Yemen--the country of Bilkees, the Queen beloved of
Suleyman," said the Jinnee. "It is an excellent suggestion, and I will
follow it without delay."

"But you won't forget to look in on Professor Futvoye to-morrow, will
you?"

"Assuredly I will not. And now, ere I depart, tell me if there be any
other service I may render thee."

Horace hesitated. "There _is_ just one," he said, "only I'm afraid
you'll be offended if I mention it."

"On the head and the eye be thy commands!" said the Jinnee; "for
whatsoever thou desirest shall be accomplished, provided that it lie
within my power to perform it."

"Well," said Horace, "if you're sure you don't mind, I'll tell you.
You've transformed this house into a wonderful place, more like the
Alhambra--I don't mean the one in Leicester Square--than a London
lodging-house. But then I am only a lodger here, and the people the
house belongs to--excellent people in their way--would very much rather
have the house as it was. They have a sort of idea that they won't be
able to let these rooms as easily as the others."

"Base and sordid dogs!" said the Jinnee, with contempt.

"Possibly," said Horace, "it's narrow-minded of them--but that's the way
they look at it. They've actually left rather than stay here. And it's
_their_ house--not mine."

"If they abandon this dwelling, thou wilt remain in the more secure
possession."

"Oh, _shall_ I, though? They'll go to law and have me turned out, and I
shall have to pay ruinous damages into the bargain. So, you see, what
you intended as a kindness will only bring me bad luck."

"Come--without more words--to the statement of thy request," said
Fakrash, "for I am in haste."

"All I want you to do," replied Horace, in some anxiety as to what the
effect of his request would be, "is to put everything here back to what
it was before. It won't take you a minute."

"Of a truth," exclaimed Fakrash, "to bestow a favour upon thee is but a
thankless undertaking, for not once, but twice, hast thou rejected my
benefits--and now, behold, I am at a loss to devise means to gratify
thee!"

"I know I've abused your good nature," said Horace; "but if you'll only
do this, and then convince the Professor that my story is true, I shall
be more than satisfied. I'll never ask another favour of you!"

"My benevolence towards thee hath no bounds--as thou shalt see; and I
can deny thee nothing, for truly thou art a worthy and temperate young
man. Farewell, then, and be it according to thy desire."

He raised his arms above his head, and shot up like a rocket towards the
lofty dome, which split asunder to let him pass. Horace, as he gazed
after him, had a momentary glimpse of deep blue sky, with a star or two
that seemed to be hurrying through the transparent opal scud, before
the roof closed in once more.

Then came a low, rumbling sound, with a shock like a mild earthquake:
the slender pillars swayed under their horseshoe arches; the big
hanging-lanterns went out; the walls narrowed, and the floor heaved and
rose--till Ventimore found himself up in his own familiar sitting-room
once more, in the dark. Outside he could see the great square still
shrouded in grey haze--the street lamps flickering in the wind; a
belated reveller was beguiling his homeward way by rattling his stick
against the railings as he passed.

Inside the room everything was exactly as before, and Horace found it
difficult to believe that a few minutes earlier he had been standing on
that same site, but twenty feet or so below his present level, in a
spacious blue-tiled hall, with a domed ceiling and gaudy pillared
arches.

But he was very far from regretting his short-lived splendour; he burnt
with shame and resentment whenever he thought of that nightmare banquet,
which was so unlike the quiet, unpretentious little dinner he had looked
forward to.

However, it was over now, and it was useless to worry himself about what
could not be helped. Besides, fortunately, there was no great harm done;
the Jinnee had been brought to see his mistake, and, to do him justice,
had shown himself willing enough to put it right. He had promised to go
and see the Professor next day, and the result of the interview could
not fail to be satisfactory. And after this, Ventimore thought, Fakrash
would have the sense and good feeling not to interfere in his affairs
again.

Meanwhile he could sleep now with a mind free from his worst anxieties,
and he went to his room in a spirit of intense thankfulness that he had
a Christian bed to sleep in. He took off his gorgeous robes--the only
things that remained to prove to him that the events of that evening had
been no delusion--and locked them in his wardrobe with a sense of
relief that he would never be required to wear them again, and his last
conscious thought before he fell asleep was the comforting reflection
that, if there were any barrier between Sylvia and himself, it would be
removed in the course of a very few more hours.




CHAPTER XI

A FOOL'S PARADISE


Ventimore found next morning that his bath and shaving-water had been
brought up, from which he inferred, quite correctly, that his landlady
must have returned.

Secretly he was by no means looking forward to his next interview with
her, but she appeared with his bacon and coffee in a spirit so evidently
chastened that he saw that he would have no difficulty so far as she was
concerned.

"I'm sure, Mr. Ventimore, sir," she began, apologetically, "I don't know
what you must have thought of me and Rapkin last night, leaving the
house like we did!"

"It was extremely inconvenient," said Horace, "and not at all what I
should have expected from you. But possibly you had some reason for it?"

"Why, sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, running her hand

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/30689